Peeling Pears

     The danger of picking pears or anything from the garden is that you then have to either eat it immediately or find a way to store it for later. Rotting vegetables or fruit is great for making compost but it means you end up spending money in winter on things you had plenty of in summer, such a waste. The problem is it only takes a couple of hours of peeling pears to understand how underpaid people working in the canning factory are.

Brian

Learning to make jam

On my list of things to do today is to make fig jam. Once you start paying attention to your garden next on the list is storing the extra. Figs are an extreme case as they stay good less than a week from the time they are picked even if refrigerated. The best reference book for Jams, Jellies and Preserves is the The Ball Blue Book. The easy to use and time tested recipes make it possible to succeed without a lot of experience. The reason you need this knowledge is that once your garden starts coming in, you can't eat it all right away. Having something with fruit or vegetable in it during winter keeps you from getting sick. So now that you have the time, learning some old fashioned methods of preserving is a good idea.

Brian