Yes, I Can!

Rainier cherries, all year long, or while supplies last.

I absolutely love Rainier cherries, love, love, love them. If heaven has a flavor, I'm pretty sure it is the flavor of Rainier cherries. The problem is, living in Wisconsin, this type of cherry is only available for about a month, and usually costs somewhere between 7 and 8 dollars a pound. My local grocery store usually has them on sale for about one week a year, and in the past, I eat all the cherries I can that week and dream about them

But this year, I decided to change all that. I decided to stock up and can the cherries. Last year, I canned peaches, pears, and homemade salsa, all with good results (which reminds me, I need to pick up some peaches and can those, too), so I was reasonably sure that I could handle cherries as well.

I didn't go overboard at the store, I bought about 5 or 6 pounds of Rainier cherries (and ate a fair amount of those). I opted to can whole cherries, with the pits, for two reasons, 1, I plan on eating them whole anyways, and spitting out the pit is no big deal, and mostly, 2, I'm lazy and didn't want to pit 5 ponds of cherries.

Ready to be canned!

Yesterday, I settled in, cranked my iPod and assembled all my canning supplies (which isn't all that much, I'm still new to canning). I removed stems, washed, and poked all the cherries (to prevent splitting). I prepared an extra, extra light syrup (I used about a third of the sugar called for I the recipe for extra light syrup). I debated about using sugar at all. I researched and found it was safe to can in just water, but sugar helps to maintain the color and firmness. I decided I'd use a little bit of sugar, and hopefully find the middle ground between limited sugar and maintaining the deliciousness of the fruit.

Once it was all ready, I packed the cans with cherries and syrup, processed them and let them cool. I ended up with ten pint jars of cherries, and I figured there are 25-30 cherries in each jar, so I canned somewhere between 250 and 300 cherries. That should be enough to last me at least a couple months.

For anybody interested in getting started with canning, I have found several resources to be very helpful, particularly the Simply Canning website and the National Center for Home Food Preservation (a division of the USDA). Check them out to get started!

Posted with Blogsy

How Does My Garden Grow?

I love growing plants. Or maybe, I just love the idea of growing plants. Either way, since about high school, I've spent time and money on attempting to get plants to grow, with varying degrees of success. Currently, the oldest plant in the house is a hibiscus plant Pippin and the cats gave me last year for Mother's Day (though in all fairness, before that, I had a shamrock plant I had kept alive through college until Bode decided to eat it, knock the pot off the counter, and scatter the roots beyond all repair).

Anyways, for many years, I've spent this time of year browsing around various garden centers, planning for the day when I had my own home and could grow all kinds of things in my own yard.

So, now I have my own home, and I started planning my garden. I picked out a patch of the yard, it was kind of low-lying, so I figured we should build a raised garden bed. I researched it, and started to plan it out...

And that was as far as I got. Husband and I just never got around to getting the materials, the thought of weeding wasn't impressing me (chalk that one up to hours of my childhood spent in a giant flower bed, pulling what I thought were weeds, but usually turned out to be the plants that were supposed,to be growing there).

After taking those factors into consideration, I decided that container gardening might be a better option. After all, we have a big, beautiful porch that gets very little use. I invested in some Earthboxes, plus wrangled up two more from a previous (failed) experiment with container gardening. Then, I went out and got soil, fertilizer and plant and got set up for planting.

Knowing that he'd spend the entire time barking if I didn't, I figured a way to allow Pippin to join me on the porch. I looped his leash around one of the rungs on the deck railing, and brought him out a bowl of water. Pippin then spent my planting time happily assisting and napping (mostly napping). Once the dog was situated, I set about planting.

It didn't take too long for me to realize just how heavy a cubic foot of dirt is (because , face it, you can call it potting soil or potting mix, or whatever you'd like, but really, it is dirt). Of course, it wasn't until I had two of the four boxes planted that I remembered that my mom gave me a pair of gardening gloves last year. At that point, my hands were so caked with dirt that it seemed pointless to up them on. Next time, I'll remember, really, I will. By the end of my project, I noticed the huge mess I had created on my porch. But the plants were planted.

My Earthboxes were filled with tomatoes, zucchini, bell and jalapeño peppers, and strawberries, there are two hanging planters on my porch railing with dahlia bulbs, and we put in a flower bed with some lily bulbs in front of the fence (though I'm starting to doubt that those will grow).

Now, if I just can remember to water everything.