Corn cobs and kernels.

I realize that many who see this are in the depths of winter with snow and ice and cold all around. It seems strange knowing that that we are in the peak of our summer vegetable harvest here in Australia.I love seeing all the photos going up of life on the other side of the world.We really are the same, world over and we all love our gardens and canning and cooking  no matter where we come from.It is the mainstay of many of our lives, and also a  productive pastime as well as a necessity.
Corn is such a useful vegetable to have on hand,we use it to death in soups, stews, casseroles, salads and just as a side vegetable or mixed with others.

We had a very  successful corn patch last year and once again decided to plant another patch this year here on the coast which also has been very fruitful.
We had a lot of issues early on with  nuisance birds we have here called "The Indian Minor birds",they rip out seeds and small seedlings, we had to  cover everything with nets to begin  and then strung fishing line across the gardens and suspended old cs's,canning rings, and bits of tinsel to try and scare them....it worked with reasonable success.

The garden progressed well and this last photo of me in front of the corn was taken  about 4 days ago.
The beans in front have been equally productive this season, we were lucky to have recieved good rainfall here right when it was required.It's a shame that we are not getting any rain up at the farm.
We harvested our little crop the day before yesterday and ended up with a yield of about 80 cobs of corn of varying sizes, but mostly medium to large.
We decided that we would  cut the kernels off  enough cobs

to fill one canner load(19 pints)  and cut the rest into smaller cobs to freeze and cook as cobs.
I use a sharp knife to de-kernel the cobs, but we have seen an attachment that goes on your electric drill that makes the job super speedy and easy that we are going to look into for next year.

So, after filling my 19 pint jars loosly with the kernels  this is what I was left with. We were very pleased with the  amount.
I then bagged up all the cobs  into individual meal sizes to  freeze.
Next I poured water into my jars leaving abou1/2 -1 inch head space, de-bubbled and adjusted water levels. I add no salt to mine preferring to do that if  or when required. I raw pack whenever possible as that is just a method that I prefer to do.
I  then  wiped the rims of all my jars with a bit of paper towel soaked in white vinegar,placed on my lids that had been simmering in a pot of water, added the bands and screwed to finger tight.

Then they were all ready to be processed, bags went into the freezer, and we loaded the jars into the pressure canner. We have it set up at the moment out in the laundry room as it was too windy to use the gas burner outside and keep it regulated, so we chose a sheltered position. as I have said in previous posts, I have only a glass top stove here  on the coast and can't use my big AA on that.

We stacked the jars into the canner, I double stack the pints, fitting 19 in all, vaseline the pot edges and lid edge and lock down with the wing nuts and set going.
The corn kernels were processed at 10lbs pressure for my altitude for 55 minutes for the pint jars.
After the  processing time has elapsed, I turn off the gas, and leave the canner to come back down to zero pressure, leave a few more minutes and remove the weight. We then wait a few more minutes before removing the lid.
As we processed it outside, we  then carried the canner inside to remove all the jars out onto my kitchen bench which I cover with a bath towel.

I leave the jars overnight to cool completely ,next morning I remove the bands, check the seals,wash and label the jars, store the rings away, and add the jars to my pantry.

This is my final product. 19 jars of lovely golden corn kernels, Last year we processed the corn in half pints, but due to the cost of lids we decided to this year do more canning into the pint jars which seems to be working well so far.
We keep a few basic canned vegies, corn, carrots, green beans, potatoes,chick peas,and 4 bean mix, they all come in handy and help to produce quick meals when i need them too.
I  am just wondering what my next canning project will be, not much more in my garden now, so may have to pay a visit to a local vegetable producer and see what i can pick up cheap to keep me going. We made a decision this year to not grow a single tomato as the cost of seed/plants, water, sprays, and fruit fly traps was prohibitive. We can buy wonderful cases of good quality  tomatoes for $5.00 a case,which is great as they are that price per kilo in the shops.
So everyone, I will be off, I also have an appointment  this morning with the blood bank to donate blood, something I do every three months.
I hope all the readers in the cold parts of the country keep warm and visa versa for the ones in the warm parts of the world.
Best wishes to everyone,
Cheers,
Jane.

Green Beans and carrots.

I have preserved food in one form or another for about 30 years now. When my Mum first passed me on her Fowlers vacola preserver and her bottles(jars) I mainly did peaches, plums and apricots along with tomatoes. One year we grew a bumper crop of green beans and I preserved those too, the only problem was that to do green beans in the Fowlers vacola System you had to Water Bath them in a brine solution for about an hour and  then 48 hours later re-water bath them again for 45 minutes. The outcome was a very soft, very salty jar of beans.
We haven't grown a lot of beans over the last 20 years, just enough to eat fresh or freeze a few, but this year Brian has grown another lovely patch or three of green beans.
We picked three buckets full about two weeks ago and  took them up to the farm and pressure canned  them, great result.
We brought the canner home the other day as we knew we would have a lot of canning to do over the next couple of weeks before we get a chance to return to the farm.

Early  this morning he picked me another bucket of beans , and I prepared them  ready to can.

I also had  a heap of carrots left over from some soup I had been making(I had got the carrots on sale at Harris farm) I chopped them up two and was going to do half the canner  load of each.

Brian then suggested that it may be a good idea to mix the two in each jar. I agreed that this would be very practical, as there is just the two of us, it would be sensible to be just able to open one jar and have both vegetables.So I filled the jars half and half approximately  with the beans and carrots.I did not add any salt to mine but some people do, and I then filled  with water  leaving about 1 inch headspace, I then de-bubbled and adjusted the water levels in the jars.

I then wiped the rims with paper towel and white vinegar,placed on my lids that i had previously simmered in hot water and screwed on the rings finger tight.

After they were all lidded and ringed, I then put them in a double layer seperated by the rack into my pressure canner. Up at the farm I have a gas (propane) stove, but down here on the coast I have a flat glass topped stove  which I am unable to use as I have a  Big 930 AA canner and  it is not recommended  to use it on it.
So we have purchased a gas burner designed for cooking crabs and prawns ect, and decided to use our canner on that outside in a sheltered spot .

We found that this worked brilliantly, although we had to keep a fairly close watch on it to keep to the required 10lbs pressure. We  processed the bean /carrot mix to the carrot  times as they required the longest preserving time.After the  25 minutes had elapsed, we turned the gas off and allowed the canner to cool down, removed the weight, waited a few more minutes and removed the lid.
The result was 19 lovely colourful pints of green beans and carrots.

I have left the jars  on the towel on the bench to cool completely overnight, each one made that sweet ping to tell me that it has sealed and in the morning, I will remove the rings, check seals,wash the jars and rings and store the rings away for future use, label the jars and store them away  in my pantry.
It  always feels good to put a little away, These little jars will be a very handy item to have in my pantry. There is nothing better than  having your own home grown produce  on hand.
I am very tired as I type this, we have had a few very big days of canning, some of which will be included in another entry soon, and I am  nearly ready to call it a night,
So until we meet again,
Cheers,
Jane.

Apple of my eye

When we bought our place there was one existing apple tree. We don't know what variety it was but it was about 7 or 8 years before we actually got a decent crop off it. There were many factors including,drought and the need to be pruned correctly(which we knew nothing about) and finally the continual onslaught of the King Parrots. As beautiful as they are, they just strip and destroy all the fruit .

So finally we came upon the idea of the polythene pipes hooped up over the trees and then the net over that. Some people prefer to remove their netting each year, we just leave them and keep the tree trimmed to stay just under the netting.The second smaller apple tree is a Pink lady,planted in honour of our dear uncle who had prostate cancer and swore by  the eating of a Pink Lady every day,Unfortunately he never got to see the tree produce it's lovely apples as we lost him just over a year ago.We also grow a lovely raised bed of rhubarb which produces an abundance of rhubarb for me to can. We quite often have an apple and rhubarb crumble for dessert, nearly everyone seems to love the combination.

I think this picture below  was probably the first year of canning the apples and rhubarb ,but this last year I did many dozens of jars of each and have them stored in the pantry.

As we slowly establish our place we will be planting an orchard of a few more fruit trees,so that we will have a few more varieties of fruit on hand to can without having to purchase  it. We have already planted two fig trees and have apricots of our own.
So looking forward to it.
Until next time,
Cheers from Jane in Aus.