No till gardening

[Meadowlark]

2,200 quarts...now that's canning.

I've regretted so many times that I didn't learn canning from my Grandmother and Mother. My Grandmother raised 17 children on a farm and canned everything for winter survival. The knowledge they had was priceless!

 

[Durgan]

Canning using pressure canning has simplified the process considerably. The quantity they had to process constituted much effort. Most impressive.

 

[treeguy]

The Good O' Days, they were... just plain hard work. We don't do that now because we would have to do it in place of doing something else. So, what would you give up doing so you could could do some canning? Reading? Watching TV?, sleep, visiting with your friends, traveling? Remember, you can't replace your regular job with canning. You work all the hours you do because your boss would replace you with someone dependable if you took off too much time. I make two or three jars of Kumquat marmalade once a year, and that's as much as I need to remind me of Grannie's late summer and autumn.

Usually, the people who remember the past fondly have a different perspective. Remembering the way the whole house smelled when Grannie was canning peaches verses Grannie cleaning up the kitchen with sweat on her brow, her legs killing her, and stains on her apron. She was holding the other end of the stick.

 

[tNtRanch]

I grew up canning with my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mom every year until I was about 12. I remember going to the local stone fruit farm and buying culled stone fruits for pennies on the dollar, peeling and cutting out the bad spots and canning forever on a weekend. We didn't use pressure canners but we could do 7 Mason jars the large quart ones per round with several pots going at once. We almost couldn't peel and cut as fast as they could load, can and set out. Once the lids sucked in and didn't click we were good to go. I never helped on jelly or jam days though. My mom still knows how to do all that stuff and more.

 

[posiepurrs]

As a kid I helped my mom can. We did everything from green beans to peaches. My dad had friends who were farmers so we got the produce cheaply. As an adult I have canned some, but mostly freeze the produce - but I still have my canning pot and rack! As time consuming as it was to do, there is nothing quite as good as homemade peach preserves or raspberry jam.

 

[posiepurrs]

I took a look at the site I planned to use and my compost heap. I decided to just dig it out instead of doing the no till, only because I realized I would have to buy soil and more compost to fill a raised bed. That defeats the purpose of saving money by growing my own food. I worked my compost into the dug bed instead. I really rather use this method instead of building boxes to grow in. Started small - 4 by 15 and will decide next year if I will enlarge the spot. I think with all the other yard work I need to do to catch up since I retired this will be plenty.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Yesterday I set fire to a bunch of branches and blackberry thorns and used my blower to get it really hot and blackened, and then I quenched it. Both the ashes and the charcoal are great for my naturally lower pH soil. Just checking, I put my pH meter in a bag of potting soil, and it measured roughly 6.7. I would think adding things to store bought raised bed soil might cause the pH to jump around. I guess at the end of a successful garden, you will have developed a system that not only works in that area, but also works for you.