What’s in the ground:

I worried that my last installment did you all a disservice by cutting out this section to make space for the greenhouse story. My tip was going to be about cover crop and that you all should sow it on sections of your garden that are now bare (especially where tomatoes were planted since they feed so heavily on nitrogen and cover crop usually builds up nitrogen). I was worried because I would have sworn that we would have had our first frost by now in Philly, but other than a few close calls, a wacky snow storm, and these last two weeks of 70 F weather, I’d say that you can probably get away with throwing a little cover crop down if you haven’t already. Although the days are shorter and it’s getting colder, I bet you could still get a seed to germinate of clover, maybe even rye. Just water it well.

As I’ve said before, I’m making 2012 the year of flowers. So this past weekend I planted tulip and daffodil bulbs, plus some strawberries. I may have reached a new level of garden geek, but I cannot wait to see that first candy striped tulip to bloom next april. Last season was such a good one for Tulips. I hope this summer repeats (at least for the tulips and not the weird stuff the weather did to other crops).

What’s going on in the homestead:

I wanted to start this installment with a funny homestead story. Our bike shed is right near our chicken coop, so it’s not unusual for Elissa and I to remember to gather the eggs when we’re either going out or coming home. This particular day we had just road in from Center City and Elissa remembered to reach in and grab the eggs. Lucky for us we’ve been keeping the chickens well fed, with a lot of sun exposure, so they’ve basically been laying once a day. Elissa packed her pockets with eggs and we walked into the house. We hung our jackets up and went about our business. About three hours later we were getting ready to go to a friend’s for dinner. Elissa gathered her stuff, but couldn’t find her keys. So she instinctively starts patting her pockets. Not two seconds later I hear her moan, “Ah, gross.” And there it was, two eggs worth of goo dripping out of her pockets. I had to laugh, even though we lost two of those delicious eggs and she had egg yolk all over her jacket.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was pickling. Since the weather has been so weird to us. We just finally harvested about 75 pounds of green tomatoes. I started off eating them, but then began to question how many fried green tomatoes I could eat. It was the most amazing thing. Some of the tomatoes were hard and green on the outside but bright red on the inside, as if they were being torn between ripening an not right on the vine. So to put them out of their indecision, we picked them and pickled them. Although I get tired of pickles after a while, canned green tomatoes just aren’t my thing.

So we pickled. It was pretty easy. We got new mason jar lids from the store. We then collected mason jars from around the house. They were of various sizes and some didn’t fit. But we had enough for a good canning. We rinsed out any dust and then dropped the jars into boiling water for five minutes, along with lids for sterilization. Next we picked them out and set them bottom’s-down on a towel. It’s important that nothing touches the rim for contamination purposes. We then chopped up tomatoes, I picked dill and we cut up some garlic that we didn’t get into the ground. We also made a brine out of water, vinegar, sugar and salt (everyone has a different brine recipe, look up a good one for sweet, hot or mild pickles).

We then put all of the ingredients into the jars using a sterilized funnel at the mouth. Next we put the lids back on tightly, but not too tight, you want to allow room for the suction. We put the jars in the boiling water for twelve minutes with a rag on the bottom of the pot. Not doing so can lead to the glass getting too hot and cracking. After twelve minutes, we put took them out and placed them to cool on a fresh rag. This is a pivotal point. If the lids don’t vacuum seal down, then they are not jared properly for storage and could result in botchulism, which can kill you. Although I did hear that botchulism is harder to get with high acidic fruits like tomatoes, the chance is not worth taking. That being said, don’t be fooled if it doesn’t seal at first. Some just take time as the cool and will most likely happen within the hour.

So go forth and can the rest of your feast. Your stomach will thank you in the winter. Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic