Our Beautiful Ruby Rhubarb.

I have been a bit slack on the posts but with good reason.
Around the middle of September my elderly mum was admitted to hospital. She had woken up on the Sunday morning and the skin had literally fallen off the sole of her foot. (she is a diabetic and has no sensation in that leg). After several days  the doctors decided to air lift her to a major city hospital where they placed a stent in her leg  to aid circulation  and unfortunately ended up removeing all the toes on her right foot. She has now recovered well and is walking  again well,until the day before yesterday when she took a tumble getting into  the car after a doctors visit and has now broken her pubic bone. Thankgod no surgery required just  rest and pain killers.
Mum will be 89 on the weekend and all the family are gathering to celebrate.
So  with all the happenings we haven't been at the farm much. We have been here for the last week and have been really busy, and instead of one big blog encompassing everything I will break it up into smaller  stories.
When we  left the farm the last time nearly 2 months ago we  couldn't remember if we had left the watering system on the rhubarb bed or not, and if we hadn't would probably have lost the lot,so we were indeed pleased to arrive and find  the rhubarb bed green and lush and in need of picking.

We were  lucky to pick a huge bunch, our neighbours informed us that they too had been picking in our absence( an arrangement we have) and after removing all the leaves were left with quite a bit so i decided that i would preserve it  into jars.

I cut it up into roughly 1 inch sized pieces and put into a large stock pot with   about 2 cups of water and two cups of sugar. I then cooked over low heat until the rhubarb starts to breakdown, stirring and watching regularly to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot which it is  apt to do.

After it has reached the right consistency I then  fill my pre-prepared jars,  and place  lids on that have been simmered in hot water, and place rings on finger tight.

I then placed them into my electric water bath canner, and covered with  about two inches of water, which we were using outside hooked up   to a generator so not to drain our household battery system and brought them to a boil and water bathed for 15 minutes.

After  boiling for the required 15 minutes, I then turned off the canner, removed the lid and let the jars sit for about  5 minutes.I then removed the jars , and placed on a towel on my kitchen table and let  sit overnight. Next morning, I removed the rings, checked seals were intact , washed the jars  and rings, stored the rings away for future use, labeled the jars and stored in the pantry for lots and lots of future yummy pies, crumbles ,cakes,slices and other lucious desserts.

 So, do I recommend growing and canning rhubarb....you bet I do, !!!
We also canned chick peas this week, but that's another little story.
So until we meet again, cheers,
Jane from Aus.