What are you canning now?

[Nyboy]

Bee the apples you have that aren't good for eating might be cider apples.

 

[Beekissed]

Nope...they aren't. They are called Black Oxford apples and they are only known for lasting long in storage, but not much for anything else at all. Most sites describe it as a sweet/tart flavor but mostly it has no flavor at all...might depend on what kind of soil it's grown in, don't know. To me they are pretty tasteless and even the deer will eat that variety last of all...the squirrels take some of them, but usually they don't bother them much. Taste too bad for a squirrel or a deer, it's not much good for us either, ya know? Even Jake doesn't like them!

 

[bobm]

Bee, the neighbors are splitting the finished product with us, which I think was very sweet and generous of them. We supplied some of the ingredients and they supplied the apples and jars. They don't know the variety of apple since it came with the property, but it's a pretty green with a red blush and is tart like a Granny Smith.

We have a small crop of apples out on a few trees, variety unknown (rootstocks that came up when the grafts died) and we'll be canning those up soon.

It's feeling like fall now!

If you whant a known variety of apple ... you can graft it to a variety or multy varieties to match your taste.

 

[thistlebloom]

If you whant a known variety of apple ... you can graft it to a variety or multy varieties to match your taste.

That's definitely a skill I'd love to learn. Our apple producing trees are a happy accident. The Prairie Fire Crabapples died above the graft, and what came back from the rootstock produces nice apples.

 

[journey11]

Nope...they aren't. They are called Black Oxford apples and they are only known for lasting long in storage, but not much for anything else at all. Most sites describe it as a sweet/tart flavor but mostly it has no flavor at all...might depend on what kind of soil it's grown in, don't know. To me they are pretty tasteless and even the deer will eat that variety last of all...the squirrels take some of them, but usually they don't bother them much. Taste too bad for a squirrel or a deer, it's not much good for us either, ya know? Even Jake doesn't like them!

I have one idea for you....puree them and use them as a base ingredient for dehydrated fruit leathers. Then you can flavor them up with other things like berries, peaches or mango, etc. and still get the nutritional value of them. The texture of apples and their natural sugar make for a really good chewy fruit leather too.

 

[Beekissed]

That's a great idea! Luckily, this year is what we call an "apple year", where all the apple trees in the state are dragging the ground with fruit, so I will be foraging easily for apples aplenty and won't have to utilize these apples of ours, but in the future, if we have to rely on just these, I'll remember that suggestion and use them as filler for something else.

 

[Nyboy]

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3330595/damn-squriells Chocolate Ex-Lax for squirrels

 

[Beekissed]

Now THAT'S interesting! Wonder if my chickens would leave that alone? I could put them up in the tree. Don't know if the squirrels would care much at all if they got the runs, but it sure would make me feel good to know they were uncomfortable!

 

[Beekissed]

Looks like I'm going to have to can more from the garden this week and also can up some pears and apples our neighbor brought us...just a small amount of each, but combined will make for some interesting sauce, no doubt.

 

[Beekissed]

Canning up small batches of things today, so have been working like I have 4 arms on cutting up this or that, washing those, cleaning that, cooking this.

My brother had brought me a shopping bag full of various hot peppers the other day but I didn't have the ingredients to turn them into hot pepper butter, so tonight I'm pickling them...sure are pretty in the jar and would have been even prettier if I had had some distilled white vinegar on hand. It made 4 qt. and 8 pts of pickled hot peppers.

Then we picked more of the straggling harvest from the garden, so making a pot of slumgullion...will likely fill 6 qts of that and canning up 4 pts. of green beans. I'll can the green beans up tomorrow in the pressure canner and will also include that rabbit I killed the other day, so it's thawing out in the fridge.

These little batches are easier to put together and, though small, still put food in the jars, instead of leaving it lying out in the garden.

Also had a shopping bag of apples and half a bag of pears from the neighbor but most of them were overripe and rotten, while half of the apples were just nasty tasting and filled with worms. I used the best of the apples and pears in a fruit salad and the rest went to chickens and dog....they were pretty excited to get fruit, especially Jake. At our last home he had apples from 13 different trees and varieties of apples, and he would eat them nonstop at this time of year. That dog had an apple in his mouth all the time back then, so he was quite tickled to get a taste of his favorite treat.

Jars being packed and sealed...

Jars awaiting their turn in the steam canner....

Will do the bean beans and bunny tomorrow!