Special Guest Speaker on High Tunnel: Tina

Wayne Riley whom is the Laurel County Grow App. coordinator invited a special guest speaker to come to our meeting on Tuesday night. His name is Doug McIntosh, he is a soil sample specialist with the USDA. He spoke to the group about high tunnel benefits, having fresh vegetables throughout the winter months, less bugs, more disease resistance to the plants.  He discussed having a high tunnel that is movable to rotate sites. Very informative and useful information. Handouts were passed out with even more information. He ended the meeting with a statement "Know your farmer...know your food". 

                                       Wayne Riley and guest Doug McIntosh

 

Doug and his wife Betty.

 

 

We were all very interested in this topic and learned alot about it.

 

Also I wanted to add the last of the community garden's summer harvest.  Many different types of peppers. These will be donated to Laurel Heights and shelters.

 

 

These are some grafted tomatoes that Wayne grew at the LCAAHC.

 

Mini pumpkins that are mainly used for Fall decorating. One of our Grow App. participants grew these and brought them in to share. Hopefully many of them will save the seeds and plant some in their gardens next year.

 

From Corn In the Field too.....Cornbread : Tina

Our field corn is finally ready to harvest. We initially grew it to feed chickens that we were going to get  but I guess you could say that we "chickened out".  Maybe next year we'll get some.
Anyways we have all this corn and  have been wanting to make homemade cornbread with it and so we did today.  We found this grinder at the flea market last year.
First we removed the corn from the cob, then ran it through the grinder 3 times. With each pass you get a finer texture.

This is the cornmeal after 3 passes, we ground 4 ears of corn and got 6 cups of cornmeal.

 

Then we baked cornbread. We were pleasantly surprised that it tasted very good.

 

We picked more today before the rain came. It has to dry for 2 weeks prior to grinding.

 

In case anyone else has some field corn and wants to make cornbread, here is the recipe we used:

 

~Cornbread Recipe~

 

1 c. yellow cornmeal

1 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 egg
1 c. milk
1/4 c. shortening

Mix all ingredients. Bake in 8x8 cake pan at 325 until done, about 25 minutes.

 

Dehydrating Takes Up Less Space....: Tina

Our freezers are full from our gardens bounty by now and most of us are running out of room. That is why I have started dehydrating.  I wish I had gotten a picture of all the peppers before I thought about writing this post. I had a lot of banana peppers, bell peppers and jalapenos to dehydrate. Had enough to fill the whole dehydrator, which has 9 trays. The cayenne peppers get dried by hanging on a string, not in the dehydrator.

 

 

This is how they look before dehydrating cut up on trays.

 

 

This is after 8 hours, they dehydrate to very small pieces.

 

All 9 trays fit into 3 jars,

 (the jalapeno jar was already 3/4th full, 

                                                            I just finished filling it up)

 

Your able to fit a lot into these jars,  without taking up a lot of room, they rehydrate beautifully. They last a lot longer stored this way and won't get freezer burned. One thing I did learn was, not to dehydrate the banana peppers if they have been frozen first, they turn dark brown and look unappealing.

To rehydrate: Just add the amount that you want to use in a bowl with warm water and let soak for 5-10 minutes. 

It's Not Always Buisness At Our Meetings...: Tina

 

At our last meeting Tuesday night, we discussed our garden's progress and compared our produce stories with each other. Wayne, the Laurel Co. coordinator discussed high tunnels, fall gardens, and cover crops. Everyone turned in their produce sheets and discussed any problems or concerns that they have been having.

We also were treated with  a 28  pound watermelon that Ricky, one of our participants brought to share, it was a Florida Giant variety.

 Herman, one of the members told us of a old time method to tell if a watermelon is ripe and proceeded to show us.

Most of us had never heard of this before but it sure was true of this watermelon, it was so sweet and delicious. We were also treated with warm homemade Hawaiian banana nut bread. Despite learning so much at our meetings, we have also acquired many great friends along the way. Many of our members stay after the meetings just to talk and share stories with one another. We are going to share our heirloom seeds with each other sometime this Fall.

 

 

Fall planting discussions..: Tina

At our last Grow Appalachia meeting at LCAAHC which was Tuesday night, the discussion was on Fall Planting. As every one's garden is winding down and Coordinator Wayne Riley is making his way around to all the participants to turn the gardens under, many of our participants are eagerly waiting to start their Fall crops. If you plant by the signs, then the best time to plant the fall crops are Aug. 27, 28 & 29. Wayne passed out turnip, kale & lettuce seeds to name a few that are perfect for the cooler weather that is approaching.
We all love getting together and talk about our gardens and how well they produced. One gardener, Ricky had a 40 pound watermelon to show us, it was his first time growing them. Another, James Napier talks about how well his banana cantaloupes did. Many of us had never heard of this type of cantaloupe. It looks awesome. We also talked about trading seeds later in the year so anyone who wanted to try to grow something different next year had the opportunity. A few of our participants have heirloom seeds, such as the banana cantaloupe, that they have had for many generations

We enjoyed homemade salsa that one participant brought in, many brought jars of home canned goodies to show off. A few have been donated to the LAAHC to put of display for everyone to see. Everyone was excited to talk about what they had canned this year, many of our participants are first time gardeners and they were eager for all the information they could get. Most of our newer participants canned tomato sauce and/or juice, pickles, beans, corn. Others talked about canning zucchini, squash, potatoes, apples, peaches, jams and jellies. Canning recipes were passed around.

One I wanted to share was called:

White Chocolate and Raspberry Spread

Ingredients:
6 cups raspberries
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1  1.75 oz. pkg. regular powdered fruit pectin
6 cups sugar
9 oz. whit baking chocolate (with cocoa butter), finely chopped
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
In a 6 quart heavy pot, use a potato masher to slightly crush raspberries. Add vanilla bean. Heat raspberry mixture over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Slowly add the pectin, stirring constantly. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil, , stirring constantly. Add sugar and return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute,stirring constantly.
Remove from heat. Discard vanilla bean. Add white chocolate, stirring until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in vanilla extract.
Ladle hot spread into hot jar sterilized half pint canning jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims and adjust lids.
Process filled jars in a boiling-water bath canner for 10 minutes (start timer when water returns to boiling) Remove jars from canner, cool on towel that is on the counter.
Makes 8 half pints

Pressure canning for the first time...: Tina

We want to give a big thanks to LCAAHC Grow App. Coordinator Wayne Riley for his help with pressure canning. We have never used a pressure canner before and Wayne explained to Ricky and I how to use it, he even gave us the beans to can. They are called Derby beans and are string less and heat tolerant. We ended up with 8 pints. He was right, it's not difficult to use once you start using it. Now that we feel comfortable with using a pressure canner, we will be canning potatoes next.

We fixed a kettle full to try and let me say they are delicious. So if your looking for a bean to can that are easy to prepare and great tasting, then you might want to give these a try.

Again, thanks Wayne and Grow Appalachia program. We have learned so much about gardening and preserving food. Definitely, my family has been eating healthier home grown vegetables.

On another note, we have had so many tomatoes that needed to be canned. These are Roma and Big beef varieties.

We ended up with 53 pints of tomato sauce,  25 pints of pizza sauce, 7 quarts of diced, 9 pints of green tomato slices and 36 pints salsa. Up until now we have only used the water bath canner but using the pressure canner opens gardening to a whole new level. We also have been sharing our vegetables with Horizon Adult Day Care Center, most are elderly and are no longer able to grow a garden of their own but still enjoy the wonderful taste of homegrown.

A Veteran Gardener's Way of Freezing Corn: Tina

From the Hoskins Garden with the LCAAHC. This year our corn did not produce very well, the ears were small and many were not filled out all the way. We bought the Peaches and Cream variety. We planted 4 rows in the Spring and only got 16 quart bags out of it. But we are thankful for what we got, according to the news, many corn fields have withered and died due to the drought and heat. I learned how to put corn in the freezer from my veteran gardener, Mother in Law. Her Mother taught her this way many years ago. It is a method that retains more of the vitamins and flavor because you are not pouring out the water from the boiled ears of corn. First you start with clean corn with all silks removed. Then in a big bowl, cut off all the corn and scrape the cob.

Next in a large skillet put the corn and add only a SMALL amount of water to keep it from sticking to the pan. Cook on medium-high heat for 3 minutes, stirring and turning corn constantly to keep it from sticking. Almost all of the water should have evaporated out by the end of 3 minutes.

Then pour into a large bowl and place in ice water bath and cool completely. Stirring it occasionally to release the heat and steam.

Then spoon into freezer bags. I like to lay mine flat on the counter and I fill them to get more room in the freezer.

There are many ways to put corn away but I thought I would share my way with you as well. Were hopeful that our late crop of 4 rows will produce more or else it's slim pickin this winter.

Enjoy!

Our Livestock---and The New Addition

Hello everyone, as you know it has finally rained, or should i say stormed. We all have been praying for it, and this past week it has payed off. While the rain has been falling and giving the gardens a much needed drink. We have been spending our time with our live stock. Chickens, Rabbits, And Pigs.

Fresh Eggs!

The Chickens- They are Giving us penty of fresh eggs. We ran into a'lil bad luck thow, had an outside critter get hungery. We lost some, but it wont get us down. We move all the hens out of the coupe and set some live traps, so we could catch the critter. Making some inpovements on our fencing, so hopefully this wont happen again!

 Laying Hens!

Rabbits- Our rabbits are fuzzy and beautiful! We have 3 White, and 3 Gray bunnies. They are 11 1/2 weeks old. One full grown momma rabbit. She is gray, and just had 2 babies. They were born on the 4th of July. And are completely black, no white, or gray spotts anywhere. The rabbits are fairly easy to care for. Just make sure they have feed and water and they are good to go.

11 1/2 week old rabbits

                                            3 week old bunny!

 

PIGS- Last, but not least at all. We added the pigs to our program. This is my favorite of all the animals in our program. We started with 2 female pigs, expecting babies. On Friday 07-20-12, one of the momma pigs went into labor. About noon they started coming. It took about 2 1/2 hours, and alot of hard work from the momma pig, but in the end we had 14 baby piglets... I am so excited!!!

Minutes after delivery!

Just after all the 14 babies were born!!

One day old!

one day old                      

This is the runt!

Our plan is to raise the pigs and share the meat with families, and to place them in homes of families who can help raise them. To create an income, and to also give back to the program to feed, or to start other families.

                                                                                    07-23-12

                                                                               Salena Henson

And The Canning Has Begun..: Tina

One of our participants: Hoskins, has an abundance of ripened Roma tomatoes that were in need of canning. We were unsure about how many plants to grow so we ended up buying a total of 51 plants that are producing very well, so well that we have been giving them to family and friends to enjoy as well..

Setting up the canning process to get things going. We got our recipe for canning tomatoes from a veteran gardener last year and have chosen to keep doing it this way since last years canned tomato sauce was delicious.

Here it is after the tomatoes have been cleaned, blanched, pureed in a blender and strained.

And now the best part of all, homemade tomato sauce all ready for the winter.

The directions for my tomato sauce are as follows:

About 40-60 tomatoes

1 Tbs. lemon juice per pint jar

1/2 tsp. canning salt per pint jar

To blanch clean tomatoes, put in a pot of boiling water for 1 minute and immediately place in ice water bowl for 1 minute to cool. Remove skin and place in blender, blend into a liquid and strain as your pouring it into a large pot. Once pot is 3/4 th full,(it will boil over if you overfill)  turn stove on med-high heat uncovered stirring occasionally till it comes to a rolling boil, then decrease to med. heat.  After about 1  hour the froth will disappear. At this stage it is tomato juice. Cook for approx. 1/2 hour longer to make tomato sauce, if cooked longer you will get tomato paste. In the water bath canner your jars should have been boiling approx. 20 minutes, lids have been in very hot but not boiling water. Get jars out of canner and set on towel on counter and place canning salt and lemon juice in each jar, then funnel in tomato sauce leaving 1/4 th inch head space. Wipe top of jars with a damp cloth and put on lid. Place ring on only  hand tight so air can escape during processing. Process for 30 minutes, start timing after it has come to a rolling boil. Let stand in canner for 15 minutes, remove and place on towel on counter, careful not to turn jar over. Should hear the lid "Pop" sound when it is sealed. Let sit in the counter untouched for 24 hours. Label and date each jar.

As a side note: Roma tomatoes are meatier, other tomatoes that are juicier may require more cooking time to turn into sauce, it's usually done when the pot is 1/2 the amount of liquid that you started with.

Enjoy!!

Our Visit With John Paul DeJoria today in Laurel Co: Tina

We were excited for our visit today with John Paul at the Community Garden in Laurel County.

Lots of visitors from the other Grow Appalachia participants arrived to join in the festivities. John Paul is such a nice inspirational person. He made a point to try to speak to, shake a hand or give a hug to everyone.

John Paul gave a heart warming story of growing up and having a garden with his family. He is a great inspiration to others to grow and eat healthy vegetables. To become more self sufficient and to take pride in doing so.

We enjoyed our meal together. Everyone brought dishes and most were prepared with vegetables from their home gardens. It was all delicious.

 David and one of our garden participants Ricky enjoying conversation on this beautiful day. We were blessed with sunny skies and cool temps.

John Paul with Wayne Riley whom is the coordinator for the LCAAHC Grow Appalachia program in Laurel County.

                          And lastly we finished the day with games and prizes for the kids.

We want to thank John Paul DeJoria for his kind words and generosity for the Grow Appalachia Program.  It has really made an impact in the lives of people in the Appalachia area to be able to provide their families with a means to grow fresh vegetables, that otherwise they would not be able to afford. John Paul was sent home with various baskets of fresh veggies, canned veggies, a quilt and a picture that was gave to him from various Grow Appalachia participants.