Compost Screening, preparing for fall planting.

Henry and Addie screening some amazing compost with their new shovels grandma got them. We have been getting several beds ready for fall planting and laying down some freshly screened compost before putting in seeds. Yesterday we planted 6 melon hills and today we planted a fresh bed of lettuce and spinach. We prepped a few more beds and I look forward to what happens tomorrow!!

Im loving the compost!!! Amazing soil made right in my backyard! We sifted the compost into 5 gallon buckets and brought in at least a dozen buckets of rich nutritious soil onto our raised beds. Keeps me motivated having good progress!

They just kept going and going! Henry loved to shake the sifter to get all the large particles out...see his new little "worker man gloves". Seriously the best 99 cents Ive ever spent! He wore them all day while he helped me with the compost, weeding, planting and harvesting.

Freezing Peach Slices

My kiddos love fruit with their morning oatmeal and we also love smoothies from frozen fruit. So I thought Id freeze some peaches! The first 3 steps are the same as for canning peaches.

Step 1: Blanch your peaches by placing them in boiling water for about 30 seconds and straight into ice cold water.

Step 2: Peel your peaches. After blanching the skin should peel right off fairly easily. If you need to do another quick blanch to help loosen the peels more, just be careful not to overcook them or they will be mushy.

Step 3: Cut your peach in half and pop out the pit. You can use a spoon to dig out the center red part or you can leave it, but it will get dark during canning but wont affect the taste.

Step 4: Cut your peaches into the size slices you want and lay them out on a kitchen towel and put them in the freezer.

Step 5: After the peaches are frozen, remove them from the freezer and seperate them from the towel (most likely they will be slightly frozen to the towel...but thats why you use the towel and not a tray or else you will have to scrape them off the tray)

Step 6: Put them in freezer safe bags, label, and put back in the freeezr.

Seed Saving Watermelons!

We've already harvested our first 2 watermelons and the seed saving was simple!
Cut it open, pick out the seeds, wash, dry, store! Now we will see how they turn out next year...or maybe ill plant a few now just to see... I am pretty excited :)

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Canning Crushed tomatoes recipe step by step with pics

We have been getting alot of tomatoes and I wanted an easy yet basic way to can them so I can customize my recipes later. This is just a simple way to can tomatoes so they can be prepared later with fresh herbs for various dips and sauces.

I started with 8 lbs of tomatoes and put them through the food processor to get them chopped fairly fine. Then I boiled them down for about 2 and a half hours to get a good thick mixture. Adding 1 tblsp salt.

 When the mixture was reaching the thickness I wanted, I sterilized my jars and lids.

Fill the jars with the tomatoes and clean the rims. Adding Citric Acid (1/8 tsp for half pints and 1/4 tsp for pints) or you can also use Lemon Juice 1 tblsp per pint (as recommended by the National Center for Home Preservation)

Process in a boiling water canner. Half Pints 30 minutes, Pints 35 minutes and Quarts 45 minutes. (if you have a pressure canner and want to save some processing time you can refer to this link here and see the appropriate processing times)

Remove from boiling water and let them rest overnight.

After they have had adequate time to rest, remove the rings and check that all the lids sealed properly, clean the jars, label and store. This recipe will be great for pizza sauce as well as some fresh marinara dipping sauces!