Garden Report 10.06.2011

 Finally, I have lettuce sprouts that aren't being devoured by birds.

 The garlic is sprouting. The onions aren't though.

 You can see a couple garlic sprouts in this photo; one is just left of the center.

 I thought about finishing painting the greenhouse tonight, but then I saw a praying mantis and thought I'd let him hang out.

 Honestly, praying mantises give me the creeps, but I also think they're kind of cool.

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Putting Food By: Corn

Sometimes I wonder if I could be a pioneer woman, and put enough food by to keep my family eating during the winter. Then I have days like today and I think it wouldn't be too difficult.
The last couple weeks I've purchased a dozen ears of corn from the farmer's market. We eat 3 or so, and then I freeze the rest.
This is a good website for learning about preserving food: http://uga.edu/nchfp/
It's the National Center for Home Food Preservation, with links on freezing, canning, smoking, etc.

To freeze the corn:
Shuck it.

Keep the shucks for the compost pile!

 

Side note: You know it's organically grown when you find worms in the ears of corn and in the bottom of the bag!

For blanching the corn, I use a steamer pot. This is the same pot I use for cooking tamales. I fill it up so the water is about 1/3 of the way up the steamer basket. Start the water before starting to shuck the corn.

According to the NCHFP website, blanch the corn in boiling water for 4 minutes.

 

Then put in ice water for 4 minutes.

 Then cut the corn off the cob. This process is easier if you put the corn in the center part of an angel food cake pan. The cob is held in place, and the corn doesn't fly all over the kitchen!

 Then I put the corn into bags and vacuum sealed it, wrote the date on it, and stuck it in the deep freeze. So far I have 6 bags of corn!

I thought about canning the corn, but I don't have a pressure canner yet, so canning is not a possibility.

While I was waiting for the water to boil, I went out and checked on the garden.

I bought some Stella D'Oro Daylilies yesterday to put in front of the porch, and two daisies and coreopsis to fill in some holes in the front planters.

 I also checked on the praying mantis. I've only been able to find one of the three from last week. Maybe he ate his siblings? He's a little hard to see, but he's kind of in the middle of the picture.

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Photoshoot with a Praying Mantis

Every year I garden and am amazed at the huge sunflowers that grow from a 1/4" seed, and the dozens of tomatoes that are produced from one seed. I'm also amazed at the insects that choose to make their home in my garden, such as ladybug larvae (which look like tiny red and black alligators), butterflies and their caterpillars, and praying mantises.
This morning I was trimming back the parsley. Both the curly and flat leafed varieties had gone to seed and I was trying to get the tops out of the way so the asparagus would get more sun. As I was trimming the flat leaf parsley, I spotted a tiny praying mantis. I watched him for a couple minutes and then decided to chance it to go run and get my camera. When I came back two of his siblings had joined in as well.  To give you a sense of scale, their entire bodies were about the length of my thumbnail! (Click on each picture to make it larger!)

There's one in the middle

One in the middle.

Both are toward the top of the photo

All three in this photo. Two toward the top left and one bottom center

I tried to get a closeup but my phone camera wouldn't focus correctly.

Two in this photo

Oh the wonder of it all!

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