Still worth it?

A quart of hard work ruined.

Even if you don't do much homesteading, gardening or farming, there are times in your life when you have to ask yourself if whatever you're doing around your home is still worth the work or not. If you have raised kids and eventually move on to that Empty Nest stage of your life, you usually have to re-examine everything you are doing -- how you're cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and even vacationing -- because while you weren't watching, your life moved onto its next phase somehow, and it all needs re-evaluation.

This is where I've been with canning the last few years. This morning, a quart jar of relish broke inside the canner, which happens sometimes (the newer quart Mason jars are usually only good for about five years before this happens), but which was very frustrating, as it represented several hours of hard work, come to naught.

Is it still worth it?

Too bad it took a quart of ruined relish for me to start pondering whether or not I actually still need that much relish stored up in the pantry. Like most people, I tend to just keep doing the same things I've always done until it becomes impractical for some reason, and then I start re-thinking whether it's needed or not. 

So after cleaning up the canner and thinking about things, I've decided that, for the time being, I'm still saying yes to canning. BUT, it's a modified yes. If it's something I can put up in pint jars, like strawberry jam, apple pie filling, blackberry syrup, etc. it's definitely worth it. Pickle relish is also still worth it -- in smaller jars. But quarts of things? Not really what is practical or needed anymore for our household of two, broken jars or not. 

So in thinking of ideas I can use to supplement our pantry in other homegrown ways, one thought I had was starting to make my own mayonnaise. I've got the eggs, and if I'm not tethered to a water bath canner filled with quarts of tomatoes all summer long, I also have the time. One other thing I've already started doing is switching our dog over to completely homemade dog food and treats, which I've wanted to do for a long time. But I'm pretty sure I can find other things that will make us more eco-friendly and healthy plus save us money if I re-order my thinking just a bit.

I'll still keep those quart jars around, though, as they're such brilliant multi-purpose containers, holding everything from flowers to leftovers to frozen broth. So the quart jars I have left will get a break from the literal pressure of canning, and I catch a break, too, in terms of workload. Less pressure on all of us. 

That's a win for everyone, I'd say.

Mason jars -- still the Swiss Army knife of household living, even without the canning.

A land -- and time -- of extremes

Vineyard Wedding!

The last 10 days or so have been a time of extremes, hence my sparse posting. There have been no horrible events, (in case that first sentence sounded dire) just a lot of difficulty working the land due to the incredible heat and at the same time, a bunch of wine country related events, which gave us a great excuse to shrug off some chores at the end of the day in favor of dancing in the vineyards and eating fine food.

This is about all we got.

My olallieberry crop was a total bust this season; I think the heat withered the berries on the vine quicker than they were able to ripen properly. At the other end of that extreme however, the canes for next year look extremely promising, so hopefully summer '16 can make up for the berries we didn't get this summer. I still have plenty of berries frozen from summer '14, so we will have pies. (this is our homestead's unofficial motto/anthem, by the way: We will have pies. So very important.) My cucumbers also seem to be a bust, never quite taking hold, while my zucchini squash crop is, as usual, leaving us buried in excess zucchini. So it looks like I'll be buying cukes to make relish this year and leaving squash on the passenger seats of coworkers' unlocked vehicles -- a typical thing.

An afternoon Industry party getting wild, and then wilder (see below).

The events and parties we've been to have been just wonderful. We had a coworker's wedding to attend last weekend, along with a birthday party plus an Industry Night that turned out more like a combination of Pride celebration and/or giant rave in the vineyards, and we danced until we dropped. The great thing about dancing is that you can pretty much eat all the food you want, drink what you like, and are guaranteed to burn it off on the dance floor. Sometimes it seems strange to be doing that at my age, but as long as there are people older than I am doing the same thing, I feel safe in participating.  Who knows, someday (probably sooner rather than later) I may not be able to, so I'd better enjoy it while I can.

So while we bake in the daytime triple-digits and hide from the sun after about 11 a.m., at night everything is warm and magical and people come out to have some wine, see their friends, and dance until the cows come home, or in our area, until the grapes ripen. Which, at the rate this heat is going, should start in a couple of weeks.

Cycling Through

Here on the Central Coast (and probably in other places where weather unpredictability is the name of the game), you learn to go with the weather patterns rather than fight against them.  We had our first heat wave of the spring season last week, with temperatures hitting the 90 degree mark.  It was also the week my cucumbers, which I grew from seed, were due to be planted. No go. Instead, I moved them outside into a shady spot to acclimate and held off on planting.

Can't wait to get these cukes in the ground. Mama needs relish.

Our weather tends to come in waves or cycles, and this week was a heat wave.  We also get "wind waves" which are possibly even worse for young plants than heat is. Most places around the country get "cold snaps" which are extremely cold temperatures which are temporary in nature. We get those sometimes, but extreme heat is usually what Mother Nature chooses to "bless" (!) us with.

And it all runs in cycles, for everyone. There are small cycles, such as heat waves/cold snaps, and larger cycles, such as drought/rainy cycles and possibly completely new cycles occurring due to global warming.

Success in growing things means learning to flow with the waves and snaps, not fight against them, whatever their reasons. It's, literally, the same thing as waves on the beach.  Fight the waves and the waves will always win.  Go with the waves and you can usually navigate within them to find your way either out to sea or to the shore, wherever you need to be.

I'm not saying to necessarily lay down and accept climate change without taking political action.  But in the garden, you can't fight it without losing your crop, so best adapt to what's happening and just get on with it. That also gives one a sense of productivity instead of helplessness. Work with what's happening and do what you can with what you have.  There's peace of mind to be had within that, whatever is going on.

So next week will be the time for planting not only my cucumber transplants, but also getting some pumpkins and summer lettuce started, because of course the heat wave also sent my spring lettuce into bolting. But next week the heat cycle breaks for a few days and we'll have seasonal temperatures once again.

In other news, one GOOD thing about the heat wave was that it gave us an advance start on killing most of our back lawn and kicked our baby squash plants into high gear.  Less water on the lawn means a bit more can be applied to the food crops. So, again, working with what's going on rather than against it, the heat does have at some advantages.

Global warming may NOT mean a world covered in water, but instead.....giant squash!?!

Life Goes On

Hmm ... eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini -- and herbs too.  Such delicious possibilities!  Ratatouille?  Farmer's Market sandwiches? Veggie lasagna?

It all sounds good. Now is the time when we pick up the pieces, dry our tears and go on.  Hard to feel bereft with so much edible bounty surrounding us, and so much of creation's beauty at our fingertips.

I did not make my friend's Celebration of Life service, which was several hours away by plane, but while working yesterday I did get a visit from this beautiful creature, who flitted and danced around me (not my image, but the same kind of butterfly).  

She reminded me that we are all just caterpillars, waiting to become eternal butterflies. And in the meantime....life goes on.

Vegetables, re-animated?

My Monsters?

Well, my cucumbers and squash are basically spent at this point, but taking a tip from our chef at the winery I decided to add some organic fertilizer into my raised beds yesterday, in order to see if I could kick-start my crops back to life for a few more weeks of "re-animation" production. (I watched "Young Frankenstein" on TV last night, and so basically today I feel like Gene Wilder playing scientist to Peter Boyle's monster, which in this case is my cucurbits. They're alive I tell you!  Alive!)

I'm not sure how I feel about this; on the one hand, a vegetable has a natural lifespan wherein it produces abundantly for awhile, then tapers off until there are no more blossoms to be fertilized and plants to be grown.  But if I can, through a natural fertilizer, push a little more fruition out of my plants, then I'm all for it. After all, it's only August and I'm not quite willing to let go of those fresh summer veggies just yet.  

In some ways, this is the hardest time of year -- we're at the clear end of summer, but here in the west the heat will be with us for at least another two months and the leaves won't turn in abundance until early December.  But everything has been moved up here because of our early spring; we will have grape harvest in the vineyards earlier than ever before, and some vines are already turning brown, defying the usual December leaf-change date.

It seems like most of the plants in this region have already given their best, produced their crop, and are now readying themselves to settle down for a nice period of dormancy.  If only we could all do the same.  But as long as we're in a protracted end of summer, at least I want some summer veggies, so I'm hoping Chef's fertilizer tip does the trick and gets my veggies started again.

After all, what's summer without zukes and cukes?

And at this rate, it's looking likely that I may have some tomatoes by Christmastime.

 

Still extremely green. Hoping for some Christmas red.

Relishing

So with the tomato harvest so late (we now have lots of fruit on the vines, but it's all still very green) I found myself in the unusual situation of sitting around on an August morning with nothing to can.  And then I remembered all my cucumbers.

If my tomatoes have been a disappointment so far, my cucumbers have been the opposite. They have far exceeded every other vegetable harvest this year, including zucchini (and that's saying something).  So now that we've had our fill of tsatsiki and cucumber salads, I decided to use the rest of this harvest for relish.

Why not pickles? I hear you cry.  The answer is simple.  My family is very picky where pickles are concerned. They go in these bursts of pickle-love, where they consume massive amounts of them, and then for a couple of years it seems like the eat none.  So canning pickles becomes an exercise in frustration, as the pickle boom becomes a bust and I'm left with jars and jars of them in the pantry.

But not relish.  After all, relish is a staple in tuna salads, on hot dogs, and in potato salad.  If the family does not always have a yen for relish, I can always use it in my own creations.

And so today was all about relish.

We begin our story with relish mix and a hot canner.

Cukezilla, you are a seedy sort and are not welcome at this party.

Into the bath for everyone!

Some relish and leftover cucumber juice for cocktails or smoothies! (Who am I fooling.  Cocktails for sure.)