Canned Beginnings

Yesterday was a very busy day! Allison, Chris' sister, is staying with us, and she has been such a good sport--we dragged her all around the valley yesterday, and she was so helpful and patient with us. She came to help Ruth and Jordan move into their new house (which was pretty fun to start organizing and setting up. Evelyn was super cute scooting around on the slippery wood floors and sucking on everyone's frozen water bottles.) We ran some errands and came home for a nap, and Chris got a really bad migraine. About this time I was feeling really bad that we didn't have a fun plan for her first day here, so I decided it would be fun to do something crafty, and strawberry freezer jam was the winner.

I'm not sure if Allison really wanted to make jam, but I thought it was fun, and she was really really helpful--she washed all the jars and kept track of the timing....actually, she did most of the work. I really hope she liked it. I had a lot of fun getting to spend time with her and getting to know her better.

It was really nice to be able to finally use some of the mason jars from my reception...They have been filling up more than their fair share of space in my cupboards. Now that I've tested the waters with freezer jam, I'm starting to get ideas about applesauce and peaches...I need a teacher, and a pressure canner.

Note: I'm really, really, really glad we followed the instructions (the recipe from the Pectin box) EXACTLY. When we did our first batch, we were really surprised at the amount of sugar it said to put in, and when we tasted the sugar and strawberry mixture, it was overwhelmingly too sweet.

...But after we added the boiled pectin and water mixture, it was absolutely perfect. (Thanks, Allison, for reassuring me and convincing me to not half the sugar in the next recipe!!)

About the time we were cleaning up, Chris resurfaced and we decided to have a cookout (Bratwurst is always good, but it is absolutely amazing on the grill!!) Daniel and Heather came over, too...it ended up being a really fun night.

Any recommendations for things to can? I know peaches and applesauce is always good, but my imagination seems to halt there. ...Also, does anyone want to can with me next month (Assuming here that only my family reads my blog...sorry all you random internet surfers. ;))

My First-Ever Garden!!

I have very fond memories of gardens from my childhood...the one in Zanesville, Ohio that seemed like an entire field of beans, the modestly sized one in Portage, Michigan that was carefully tended by the deer and rabbits, and the one I helped my parents plant at a neighbor-sponsored community garden...I was so excited to make beet chips with that production, and I never did.

When Chris and I moved into an apartment with garden plots, I immediately wanted one. And a  month or so ago, my sweet husband went to the office and picked one out...the huge one on the corner. :) ...and for the past month, it has been enthusiastically befriended by every weed--and
tree!--that grows in Utah.

So, yesterday, after a few hours of planting a plethora of flowers in Ruth's new garden, the mud between my toes whispered to me and I felt a surge of excitement to plant my little vegetable garden. Ruth, Elise and I went to this ADORABLE little nursery in Orem--seriously, I want to live there--and picked out the plants I had planned and several we impulsively fell in love with. ...And after a whole morning of gardening, Elise still had the kindness and energy to stay with me and plant. (Ruth had to take Evelyn home for a nap, but she lent me her gardening tools.)

I had assumed that, since it was just a small plot, we wouldn't spend much time...pull out a few weeds, maybe turn over the soil, and viola! a perfect garden.

The weeds had other ideas.

Elise and I spent about 3 hours just preparing the soil of this tiny 4x5 plot. The weeds did not want to be weeded, and the trees were very thick and very deeply rooted in the dusty rock that some fool called soil. And someone before us put a ton of mulch in the garden, along with a lot of BIG rocks...so we filled 4 or 5 bags with all of that junk before we even got to all the roots. After a LOT of work, and about a dozen watering-cans of water (Seriously, that soil was a dry, solid ROCK), we finally started turning over the soil and mixing in some planting soil. About this time, Elise's hand ripped open (she had an enormous blister) and we went inside to clean it and bandage it up. I was feeling pretty awful about having her help around now, and getting ready to call it quits, but she went right back outside and we kept working. (Thankyouthankyouthankyou, my sweet hardworking sister!!)

Eventually, we got around to planting, and it was so fun and SO satisfying. This is what we fit in our little garden:
6 red lettuce
6 lettuce
1 zucchini
6 green bell pepper
2 strawberry
1 row bush beans
1 row tricolor beans
1 row sugar snap peas
1 row green onion

It is such a beautiful little garden, and I was so excited about it that I couldn't bear to be done with it...so I gathered up some of the rocks I'd removed previously and painted them to be markers. Then I started worrying about the paint washing off in water, so I found some shoe water proofer and sprayed them all...It worked fabulously, the water beads up on the rocks!! So so cool.

I can't wait to show my family when they come out for all the weddings!!