My obsession with canning continues.

(Sorry, I tried to post this last week before I went on a week-long wilderness skills building course but there was a glitch with the system. Happy Canning!)

Summer is winding down and I am taking every chance I can get to stuff fresh produce in jars and freezer bags.

I hit up my aunt for her peach recipe. The details are below. There have been a few questionable experiments with strawberries. I will let you know how they turn out.

Happy canning.

Aunt Susan's peaches.

About three dozen ripe peaches. Your fingers should be able to dent the flesh, but not be super soft.

Cane or raw sugar.

12, 500 milliliter canning jars with sealing lids.

A canner.

Lots of clean pots and clean dishcloths.

Ascorbic acid. (Powered Vitamin C)

Make sure you work on clean surfaces and sterilize the jars. A dishwasher works for the glass and you can pop the lids into a pot of boiling water on the stove for a minute or two. (I am sure opinions differ on that point, but that is what I did.)

First mix sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil to make sure the crystals melt. Then turn off pot. The ratio we used was 2 cups sugar to 6 cups water.

To skin peaches drop them into boiling water for about 20 seconds, then into a cold water bath. After a few seconds in the cold water the skins should slide off easily.

Place 1/8 of a teaspoon of ascorbic acid in the bottom of the jars.

Top with cut peaches. Then fill with sugar syrup up to the bottom of the neck of the jar. You want the room because they contents will expand.

Wipe rim of jars with clean cloth. If you have any bits of peach or sugar on the rim they wont seal.

Screw on lids, hand tight is fine.

Bring water in canner to almost boil. Put in jars with the tops covered in water. Bring to a boil and let bubble away for 25 minutes.

Remove with tongs. (The ones at Canadian Tire are awesome. I am extremely clumsy and managed to make it through this burn free)

Place jars on baking rack to make sure air circulates as they cool.

Listen for the popping sound. That means the jar has sealed.

Final step: Try to refrain from going on a peach bender and eating them all before the end of the month.

 

London Police release riot safety guide

 As riots and looting continue throughout the U.K., police in London have released a safety guide for city residents.

The police stress they have a plan to keep residents safe - including about 16,000 officers on the streets, according to the release - but remind people to be alert and map out travel routes to make sure they avoid affected areas.

Updates can be found on the Metropolitan Police force's Twitter feed.

Apologies to those of you who have already read this multiple times, but I feel the need to stress (again) the importance of having an emergency kit or enough food and water in your apartment to last at least 72 hours.  

I completely support the need for, and the right to, protest in groups but will never understand what prompts a person to try to burn their city down, or steal from the injured.

At least if you have food and water you can stay indoors until the worst of the group are arrested or (in a perfect world) are struck to the ground by some kind of horrific gastrointestinal disorder after stealing someone’s food.

Closing down the condo farm - at least for a few months.

 

(Katie holding out my extremely healthy Rapini, which managed to survive despite less than ideal conditions in my condo farm)

My first harvest at the condo farm is complete. Despite my best efforts to neglect many of the plants near the end of their life cycles, several varieties of vegetables managed to grow and even thrive in my tiny artificial fields.

The story I wrote for the Star is here. If you want the Coles Notes version, the lettuce did fairly well, curosity led me to allow my beans to die a premature death, and I should never be trusted with mint.

I do plan to grow radishes again. Yanking them from their tiny pots and biting off their tops was extremely satisfying - especially after a long day.

 

Vacation, cottage country, bears and forest fires!

(Photo of rather handsome black bear of undetermined sex taken by Michael Banani)

I am packing up to head to Georgian Bay for about a week. I will be back at my desk and back on the blog in early August.

The photo above is of a bear that has been sighted close to the island where our cottage is located. There have been quite a few bear sightings in the area this summer. Apparently we have a bear horn. I am pretty sure my best chance of staying safe is to keep my head up and make lots of noise when I walk. But I will be happy to have the horn if a bear shows any signs of getting near the dogs or the kids.  

On a not totally related but relevant topic, the Star's Tanya Talaga is reporting on massive fires in Northern Ontario forcing the evacuation of more than 3,300 people from their homes, including in Kitchener and Ottawa. UPDATE: By Thursday afternoon more than 3,000 people were being airlifted from their homes as firefighters battled more than 100 fires.

Not all forest fires are caused by people smoking or leaving smouldering embers in the woods, but I still wanted to link to some information from the Ontario Ministry of Natural resources on camping and fire safety.

I went to the site expecting simple instructions on building fires in clear areas and properly dousing your coals, but there is a ton of interesting information. My favourite part is the link to the science of fire.

On Monday the Star will publish my account of learning to make fire with a bow drill with Andrew McMartin from the P.I.N.E Project, a Toronto group that runs camps for kids and adult workshops with the goal of reconnecting people with the natural world and building healthy communities.

I do not actually make fire, just detail the humbling and therefore amazing process of learning all about the components of a bow drill kit. For anyone who wants to learn something and is willing to step out of their comfort zone - at least that was the case with me - I would highly recommend heading to their website and checking out the adult courses and workshops.

Have a good week. Whatever you do, don’t feed the bears and hope everyone you know and love is staying cool and comfortable.

 

Harvest time at the condo farm

 
 
I managed to gather enough vegetables from my grow-light garden to make a salad. The lettuce was incredibly tasty but the radishes were the best part. Pulling them from their little peat pots was as satisfying as I expected it would be.

The rest of my vegetables from the April 10 planting have been transplanted from their peat-pot homes to containers made of collected trash (mostly cut plastic containers pulled from recycling bins in my garbage room).

Everything seems to be thriving. I expect harvest number two to take place in the next couple pf weeks.

A word of warning to condo dwellers. If you are considering planting a garden in your living room, you may want to invest in a vacuum clearner.

Chickweed mystery solved!

 

(My salad. The little leaves belong to the chickweed. Dressed with lemon, olive oil and salt. Yum!)

Harvest time is here, or was. It was brief but amazing. I pulled all my lettuce from my sub-irrigated bucket and made a salad. Mixed with the lettuce was a handful of chickweed, which I did not plant.

It turns out my twin sister Katie - an urban farmer and permaculture designer who is teaching me all about plants - had an answer for me.

"I put it in there," she said when I asked how I ended up with mixed greens. It seems Katie has made a habit of harvesting chickweed seeds off plants in alleys, parking lots and sidewalks. She decided to tuck some into the bucket. The salad was better for it.

(She speaks about scavenging seeds with completely unaffected joy. Her hilarious love of plants - she flirts with them to help them grow - is what has made this phase of the project so fun.)

I think pulling the lettuce out of the bucket with my hands made me feel a bit too rustic because aside from washing off the dirt I didn't do anything to the greens before I dropped them in the bowl.

For most of the 15 minutes it takes me to get through my salad I resemble a bunny sucking up a giant mouthful of, well, chickweed and baby lettuce.

It is not exactly first date food. Unless you are lucky enough to be dating someone hilarious and unflappable. In that case carry on. I hope your next course involves something covered in sauce and you are eating it with your hands.

Condo style salad

(My condo farm lettuce mixed with market-bought arugula. There was also some chickweed growing in there - not sure how that happened -  but it was a pleasant surprise.)

My lettuce bucket had become incredibly crowded so I have started thinning out my tiny crop so some of the plants have a chance to thrive. Baby lettuce is delicious. The radishes are going down next.

 

Katie and I transplanted all of my vegetables on the weekend using containers we found in the recyling bin in my building. I will be posting photographs and instructions at some point.

The vegetables are doing much better than I expected and seem totally capable of thriving in spite of being cursed with a neglectful, clumsy mother.

Nature is amazing. It also seems to have a sense of humour.

 

 

At least one of my radish's days are numbered

My baby radishes are doing well. What concerns me is my growing desire to pull them out of the soil to see what is underneath.

Except for the few tiny vegetables that didn't want to sprout, the entire garden I have planted in my rented condo is growing quite quickly. We have not transferred the peat pots yet, but will likely just pack soil around them in a deeper plastic tray.

When it comes to the radish I feel like I am being pushed by the part of my personality that draws huge satisfaction from pulling out splinters or picking scabs (sorry if you are reading this while you eat) when I was a kid. 

To be honest, if I wiped out on a bike now you would need safety gloves to keep me from messing with cuts and scrapes on my knees.

I'm making an educated guess that putting it back the soil once I yank it out won't be a good idea. I will try to keep my hands off it for now.

My plants are thriving!

Behold, my beautiful, healthy baby radish. The plants in my apartment are thriving, some perhaps a bit too much as I am now wondering whether I will be forced to remove my couch to make space for grow racks.

I have not replanted my tiny vegetables yet - that day will come soon - but I am really happy I have managed to get them past the wee sprout stage without multiple deaths. Plants are hardy little things, but early on I thought I killed at least three of them by allowing more than a hair-thin stream of water to hit them shortly after they sprouted. One of the lettuce plants is still growing at a very sad angle - but it is alive.

The wildest part is the sub-irrigated bucket has not required watering since we planted it more than a month ago. Highly recomended for anyone looking to grow plants but doesn't have the time to fuss over them.

I must admit I have been thinning out the top by pulling out the occassional leaf or two.

Baby lettuce, not a surprise, is delicious.

 

 

Condiments 101

 

BBQ season is here and in celebration of all things grilled wanted to post a few recipies for condiments.

For my last project Nicole Kruzick from Belly Catering taught me how to can a pile of green beans to use for Caesars. I have a plan to can or jar everything I can get my hands on this summer.

What we didn't film or document was our three attempts to make mustard.

When I called Kruzick to ask if she was interested in canning she mentioned it was a bit early — you want to can when fruits and veggies are at their peak of freshness — so she suggested making condiments.

Our first three attempts involved using ground mustard seeds — grinding them ourselves seemed like the more rustic or old fashioned choice instead of just using powder - with fairly dissapointing or runny results.

Eventually one batch, thanks to Kruzick's patient tweaking, firmed up enough to be spreadable. The mustard is burning hot and delicious.When I asked her to send the recipie she also threw in instructions on how to make ketchup and relish.

Her full recipies are below.

Zippy Ketchup
2 cups tomato Sauce
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup maple syrup
4 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 Tbsp sriracha hot sauce
1/2 tsp ground cloves

In a sauce pan combine tomato sauce, sugar, maple syrup, cider vinegar and hot sauce. Cook over medium heat  for 30 minutes. Add ground cloves and continue to cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, allow to cool and serve.

Clean your Sinuses Homemade Mustard
½ cup mustard powder
3 tsp water
3 tsp cider vinegar
¼ cup maple syrup

Mix the above ingrediants in the same order listed. Mix ingredients until smooth, refrigerate for 45 minutes. Mixture will thicken in that time, then serve.

Dill Pickle + Corn Relish
2 cups onion
3 cups white sugar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup corn
2 cups chopped pickles

Mix onions, sugar and vinegar in a sauce pan. Cook over medium high heat for 30 minutes. Add pickles, corn and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. Allow to cool and serve.