hot hot hot

Yesterday and today were incredibly hot and humid, so we decided to spend the time inside with a canner, boiling water, and dehydrator all running at the same time...makes sense eh? hahaha

We had more greens beans out back and figured we would try some pickled since we've always heard about them but never tried any. Our cucumbers aren't doing so well, but a visit to a friends got me a surprise bag full to make more pickles too. I also had a good sized basket of peppers, so those needed done too. We even got the first good picking of sweet corn. The ears are small, but still delicious. The 29 1/2 pounds of onions were dry, so Lisa braided them together, and the rest went into the dehydrator. Soooo...........we had a lot to do.

The total from yesterday and today is:

6 qt freezer bags green pepper slices

9 pts dill pickles

3pts pickled beans

1pt pickled jalepenos (i wanted to try something different)

3 pts hot wax pepper slices

8pts jalepeno slices

28 ears sweet corn into freezer

2 quart sized bags dehydrated onions

Tonight I'll be doing beets and turnips, plus there is another dehydrator full of onions to bag when they're done.

Since we planted so many potatos this year, I've been trying to think of something for storage and came up with a simple bin with mesh sides for air circulation. All made from scrap wood in the garage, a handle I had, and mesh for outdoor scucco I scavenged from a jobsite dumpster. All I had to buy was a set of hinges. It's not pretty by any means, but hey, its going to be in the basement so who cares.

Tomorrow I'm taking a day away from the garden stuff and working on other projects. I need to work on the walk-in closet I built in the prep room, and turn it into a sort-of root cellar. I need to do a bit of caulking, cover the heat vent with sheet metal, make some sort of ventalation fan, and figure a way to vent it to the outside with pvc pipe. I'll be putting hooks in the ceiling for hanging the onions, building some sort of base to put full buckets on to avoid moisture, and move the camping gear back out into the main room. We're running out of room for food storage so fast, and this is the last place we have other than converting a closet in the spare bedroom. It'll be cooler than upstairs by far, and though it won't be as convienent, it will just be for bulk and root crop storage. I'm hoping that a little of this side-job money can go to more bulk food like sugar, oats,rice, and flour. We use a lot, it less expensive in bulk, and we do tend to prep quite a bit anyway. Besides, we still havent used all of those food grade buckets we ordered a few months ago...no sense in letting 'em sit around empty.