{"id":332,"date":"2012-07-13T09:03:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T13:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=332"},"modified":"2012-07-13T09:03:09","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T13:03:09","slug":"gardening-tip-from-the-kitchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Gardening Tip From The Kitchen!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday I spent the day being a food hoarder. \u00a0My Mother had once again brought me home some wonderful Amish produce straight from their farm! \u00a0There was so much of it I had to start processing it since there was no way we could eat it all before it went bad, and now that I am learning how to can, it was perfect!<\/p>\n

I started with preparing blueberries to freeze since I already had an abundance of blueberry jam. \u00a0Oh and the thought of farm fresh blueberries in the middle of winter is mouth watering. Simply arrange the berries on a cookie sheet in a single layer and place in the freezer until frozen. \u00a0Then package in ziplock freezer bags removing as much air as possible, label with date and you’re done!!<\/p>\n

Next I decided I wanted to do the same with the sweet corn since my family eats a lot of corn! \u00a0This is where the\u00a0gardening tip<\/strong> comes in, To freeze corn, you first must blanche it on the cob for 7 minutes. \u00a0Once the 7 minutes are up immediately give it an ice water bath to stop the cooking process. \u00a0A general rule with this is, blanche 7 minutes, cool 7 minutes in the ice water bath. \u00a0I then cut the corn off the cob. \u00a0I had absolutely no waste of anything \u00a0with this process! \u00a0The corn goes into my freezer to feed my family. \u00a0The cob goes into the freezer to give to the chickens this winter. *Note* DO NOT give chickens corn in the hot summer months because it warms them up too much, remember it’s hard for them to digest corn just like it is for us. \u00a0It’s a great treat to give chickens in the winter months for this reason. \u00a0Now for that\u00a0gardening tip<\/strong>, the water that was used to blanche (boil) the corn in is filled with wonderful beneficial nutrients for your garden! \u00a0Once it’s cooled, use it to water your plants and gardens, same with the ice water bath water! \u00a0You can do this with any water that was used to boil or steam fruits or veggies in! \u00a0Where we live, we have to pay for water and it gets EXPENSIVE! \u00a0So whenever possible I try to reuse and recycle it.<\/p>\n

My next canning adventure was making peach preserves with all the yummy peaches I had! \u00a0I had never done this before and wasn’t sure it was working at first, because I couldn’t understand how sliced peaches, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 6 tablespoons of pectin were going to be able to come to a boil, but low and behold, it did! \u00a0The end result was delicious!<\/p>\n

Today, I will process some of Michigan’s finest cherries (our state is well known for our cherries.) \u00a0I’m thinking I will freeze them as well, I mean, who wouldn’t love fresh from the tree cherries in the dead of winter! \u00a0I will also process green beans and tomatoes! \u00a0I see sauce in the very near future!<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0TIP<\/strong> whenever you’re working in the kitchen and have scrapes, especially fruits or veggies, consider doing what I do in these hot summer months. \u00a0I freeze them for the chickens! These frozen scrapes make wonderful treats for your hot chickens and it helps to keep them cool too! \u00a0Be sure to label the chicken food though so no one thinks you’re crazy when they find all the eaten off of watermelon rinds:)<\/p>\n

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Peach preserves<\/p><\/div>\n

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Yesterday I spent the day being a food hoarder. \u00a0My Mother had once again brought me home some wonderful Amish produce straight from their farm! \u00a0There was so much of it I had to start processing it since there was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2jrxr-5m","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}