It's Salsa Canning Time

Hey Farm Aficionados!

It's that time of year when all good little tomatillos and tomatoes cry out, "No!  Choose me!  I want to SALSA!"  Yes folks, not to be confused with Salsa--the Latin music/dance style, our tiny toms are actively involved in our canning fiesta on our farm.  Farmer Gina rose early and begun the rinsing and cutting of the veggies ceremony as you can see in the photos below.
 

Notice those beautiful ROMA tomatoes?  They make awesome salsa!

In addition to salsa roja (red sauce for you non-Spanish speakers), Farmer Gina made salsa verde (green sauce, etc). They are chunk-a-licious! Here are two of our little beauties.

I will let you know if the recipe was a success when I open a jar up in the next couple of days.  If the recipe tastes good I will tell you where I got it from.  If the recipe is an epic fail I will tell you where I got it from!  Happy eating!

Spud Princess

Hey Pine Street Family Farm Fans--all three of us!

Please look upon the following picture with oohs!  aahs! and isn't she cute?!  This is Farmer Amy checking on a portion of our potato harvest.

After digging deep in the mud, our very own SPUD PRINCESS shares her tater treasures. 

Yep, We're Still Here!!

It's Farmer Stephanie back atcha after a temporary absence from the "Blog".  I've been too busy to post anything as it has been potato harvesting, tomato picking, general garden bed mulching and spent crop, herb, and cut flower composting.  Farmer Gina and Grand daughter Farmer Lucy are planning the square garden seed plots as I write.

I haven't figured out how the successful "blogists" post all the glorious pictures and tidbits and recipes on a daily basis.  Farmer Gina and I homeschool four children and care for a 3 year old and a nine month old throughout the week.  Eventually, I will get pictures posted of these future farmers (six of Farmer Stephanie and Non-Farmer Mike's grandchildren).  The three year old, Antonio, is a willing worker.  He helps prune back whatever plants Farmer Gina and I ask him to do.  He carries split wood and places it in the chicken run so the bugs congregate and our girls have a little protein variety.  He loves the chickens, especially his hen, Diesel.  Don't ask me why he named her that, but he is happy working outside and we love having him do so.

Shout out to Farmer Gina and Farmer Lucy for helping me get this pic of Farmer Antonio on the blog!

We have had a successful tomato and tomatillo run this summer.  Recipes and canning jars are at the ready for salsa roja and salsa verde.  We'll get back with recipes and photos.

HAPPY FARMING!

Farmer Stephanie--All On Her Own

With Farmer Gina on vacation in California, Farmer Stephanie has no photos to share at this point because Farmer Stephanie doesn't have a clue how to put them in her post.  Next week, perhaps, but after all, she is a Farmer not a tech wizard!

To update you on the happenings on Pine Street Family Farm:  The chickens continue to delight us with their antics.  I have been "elevated" from a mere Chicken Crooner to Chicken Mama.  They come running when they see me and I have trained them to eat out of my hand.  Not bad for an old gal new to chicken life with chickens which were not "hand raised".  No matter, they love me.  They are like dogs, except they actually give something in return.  I'm all about love and devotion, but you can't eat those; you can sure eat those awesome eggs the girls provide, however!

Farmer Stephanie's first observation about hand-feeding:  The girls will peck at the nail polish because they are attracted to the bright color.  I figured this out, however, so my nails are painted the palest pink possible.

Second observation: They are pigs when it comes to treats.  Our girls love unpeeled bananas, grapes, greens, and wormy tomatoes from our garden.  Found some slightly ripe pears on my early AM walk. I hope they'll enjoy it.  I'll let you know.

Third observation:  They do not like broccoli.  At least my girls don't.  This is good, though, because Farmer Stephanie's hubby, Not a Farmer Mike, won't have to share his favorite veggie.  That's OK as the girls can have my portion.

Other goings-on at Pine Street Farm: Now is the time to get our seeds in the raised beds for salad greens, broccoli, celery, flat leaf parsley, and green onions.  I will be adding more organic material to the beds before seeding.  Every time I see something green peek its head up after a week or two I am always amazed at the miracle of life underneath the soil.

Happy Farming!
Stephanie

Late Summer is in Full Swing

Where did this summer go?  It seems like it was just barely May and we were carefully tending newly planted seedlings, wondering how long it would be until they really took off.

Now it's August, and the tomatoes are on the verge of bursting into red ripeness (in fact, we've already been sampling our grape tomatoes!).  Here's one of my farmhands helping me stake up her tomato plants.

Yesterday, our neighbor two doors down brought us plums from his tree.  And not just a few.  He gave us around 115 plums.

These are just some of the plums.
Aren't they pretty?

What do we do with that many plums?!  Well, we eat them fresh, of course, and to start with we decided to make plumsauce (like applesauce, but with plums).  So Mama Stephanie cut about 25 of them in half and cooked them down.  But they didn't turn into plumsauce.  There was so much water that when we blended it, it was more of a puree.

That got me to thinking--jam starts with puree.

So here we are, our very first (and perhaps last, depending on how it turns out!) canning project.  We had the right jars and lids, the pectin, the sugar, but no canning equipment.  No matter!  A stock pot with extra jar rings in the bottom is a fair substitute.

Measuring out what we need for jam.
The rest is for plum BBQ sauce.  YUM!

Sanitized and ready to be filled!

My canning rack, as it were.

Waiting to get in the bath.

A nice, hot, 10-minute soak.
And by soak, I mean boil.

All finished!

My husband counted each of the 11 satisfying "pops!" as the seals were created.  Tomorrow, we'll taste it and make sure it's good enough to share with our friends and neighbors!