Good morning y’all,

It’s another grab your coffee and let’s sit down and chat. Today we are talking about the garden. I always have to plan out what we are using each item for before the gardening and preserving season starts. Well this year I don’t have it all fully figured out but I wanted to share it any ways. So here is how this will go. I am going to write all my thoughts up here, then paste in what we have planned and thats it. No parting words after that. Haha. 

I am writing this blog on February 4th and as of this moment in time, I do not have everything figured out. I meant to take a walk to the basement to look at our current canned good pile but didn’t get the chance to yet. So that also means I don’t have my complete list of what we need to do for preserving. Then add in that half of the items listed, I didn’t write out a plan yet. So there will be items that you see with just the name and thats it. We have a little time until we need to have it all figured out, so I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we come back and share the progress of our planning? Everyone always shows the end result but why not show the in progress. So that is what you are seeing today. The in progress processing of my brain and what we have plans for this garden season. 

Let me also say that there are items on this list that we are not growing or we won’t be growing enough quantity of so we will be outsourcing. There are some ideas that I have that I know will be amazing and tasty but we just can’t grow the item. Also this is somehow yet again the year of the tomato but we will see if we have enough or will we need to purchase more. So this list is very much so just a list of items I want to preserve this year in some sort of way. Now I just need to be on top of it and find these deals that everyone seems to find and get some produce on mass sale. Haha! There are also some items on this list that I have not tried myself but I am going to get out of my comfort zone and do so this year. So hopefully we can make some videos of that process too. One I will say is beans. Never tried canning dried beans but I want to! We go through so many beans especially black beans, I want to can these. I know we most likely wont be growing enough to can so I plan to outsource and pick some dried beans up from the market or finding bulk. Another is lemon and lemon juice. Ok, I gotta stop telling you or this list will be spread out in the blog side and not the list side. 

Forms of preserving that we have available: pressure canner, canner, freeze dryer, freezer, dehydrator, eating fresh, juicer and herb drying rack. All of these methods are going to be available to us this year and we will use all! So let’s add this list and figure out what exactly we are going to do. I will have to come back with some recipes then so I can have them ready to go and I’ll post them as I try them. I refuse to share recipes unless I try them and like them! 

Tomatoes - year worth of pasta sauce. Marinara sauce, freeze dried so we can make sauce, paste and marinara as needed. Enchilada Sauce. BBQ Sauce 

Zucchini - eating, freeze drying to make “veggie straws” - zucchini flour

Yellow squash 

Cucumbers - eating. Sky’s pickles - freeze dry with seasoning and cut into discs to be like chips

Leeks 

Onions- seasoning, everyday use 

Kale

Spinach 

Melons (cantaloupe fam) eating, juicing 

Beans - eating, freeze drying, dill bean pickles 

Calendula - salves, 

Cumin - seasoning

Oregano - seasoning, medicinal - tincture 

Basil - seasoning, medicinal - tincture 

Nasturtiums - eating 

Mullin - medicinal 

Milk weed - medicinal 

Milk thistle - medicinal 

Bee balm - medicinal 

Stevia - tincture 

Potatoes - eating, freeze dry to have instant potatoes 

Broccoli 

Broccoli raab 

Beets 

Green bell peppers

Red bell peppers 

Jalapeños - eating, hot pepper jelly 

Dill -seasoning 

Peas 

Chives - seasoning

Cabbage 

Radish 

Dikon radish 

Rosemary - seasoning, medicinal - tincture 

Parsley - seasoning

Mustard - medicinal 

Bok choy 

Collards

Romaine lettuce 

Arugula 

Yarrow - medicinal 

Lemon balm - medicinal 

Peppermint - medicinal - freeze dry or dehydrate 

Hyssop - medicinal 

 

Picking: 

Strawberries - pie filling, color powder, freeze dry 

Blueberries - freeze drying, blueberry lavender jam 

Blackberries 

Apples - apple cider vinegar, Apple jelly, freeze dried snacks, juice and cider 

Peaches - pits (inside the pits has a seed. Use that to make almond extract)  peach syrup,

Pineapple - cubed - canned so we can use on pizza. Peel made into juice 

Cherry - pie filling 

Dried beans - canned