I have not been making very many cards lately and not because I don’t want to. Sometimes LIFE just gets in the way:( We live on 20 sagebrush covered acres in the middle of nowhere, Oregon and hubby “farms” about an acre of it…large garden and about 25 fruit trees plus strawberries, raspberries, grapes, gooseberries and currants. When the food is on the vines, someone (me) must do something with it. Hubby plants, waters, weeds and fertilizes but I pick, cook and preserve. I thought you might enjoy seeing what is taking my time away from cardmaking!
Right now we have sooo many green beans! I need to start canning and freezing but it has been so hot that I only get enough picked for dinner…which is quite a lot!
We decided to try fermenting a few jars and they will be ready to try next week.
Then there are the cucumbers! Oh my word! I cannot believe how many cucumbers we have every.single.day!!! A friend told me about this delicious Cucumber Lemon Drink that has ginger and spearmint leaves in it as well. It is so refreshing in this heat! I have been making gallons of it for us to drink. My son works on a wheat ranch and it is harvest time and hot; no air in the wheat truck. He has been taking two quarts of this drink every day all this week.
So, when life gives you cucumbers, what do you do??? Make pickles of course! My hubby has always wanted to make salt brine (fermented) pickles. We regularly purchase Bubbies Pickles and they are salt brine (no vinegar). So far we have made 2 gallon jars of the salt brine pickles but we are planning to fill our 15L Harsch Stoneware German Crock with pickles today!
Anybody recognize these gallon jars? We used to buy Adams Peanut Butter in these jars at Costco! What a valuable resource they have been for storage over the years! For the pickles, we make a brine of water and salt. We put grape leaves, whole garlic cloves, dill seed, and dill weed in the jar; add cucumbers, brine and top with more grape leaves. Then we put them in the root cellar for two weeks before trying. You have to check them every day to make sure they are staying under the brine and might have to add a little more brine as they continue to ferment. In our reading, we found that fermented vegetables are very high in probiotics. In fact, ONE green bean will have more probiotics than a whole jar of probiotic pills. WOW!
Thanks for visiting today! I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my life:) I will get a few cards made this weekend to share with you next week. But stay tuned for more Gems from the Garden too!
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