Putting Up.

   Putting up is an old expression used by farmers, homesteaders and garden growers. It simply means to preserve the produce you have harvested in any of several ways. This is usually done by pickling, canning and freezing; we have chosen pickling and freezing as our methods for putting up our meat and vegetables. Many people are familiar with these methods only because they see the end result in the supermarket not because they possess the skill to do it themselves. It is this disconnect from food that causes people to ingest what ever the large super farms, think Monsanto, give them to eat. They don't know if it's good or not, they don't even know if it tastes right or not. People have grown accustomed to eating tomatoes that taste like cardboard and bread that can be mushed into tiny round balls of sticky gluten. People are disconnected from food and its' source and so are deceived by advertising into believing this is normal.
    The choice we have made is to reconnect to the land and our food sources and to learn the skills required to grow, harvest and put up our food. I can say it's more work, takes more effort and planning but it's worth it. I can walk through the garden and pull a tomato off the vine and taste its freshness, I can see when vegetables are ripe and know when it's time to harvest them. The process is learned but this type of learning is fun. I have blanched and frozen pounds of yellow summer squash and green beans in the last few days, something I've never done before. I made a few errors during the process which cost me time but learn I did and now we have fresh vegetables in the freezer. I have also harvested forty pounds of red skin potatoes and pulled seventy-five onions with great satisfaction. Kathy made mashed potatoes with some of our fresh crop and they tasted incredible.
   I have my shoulder surgery tomorrow and so there has been great urgency in getting everything done that I can. This time of year the gardens start to look tired, everywhere I look I see yellow leaves and spent vines which will soon become compost. I also see unripened fruit and hope for continued warmth so that we can fully harvest everything we planted. There are plots that are empty now and I'm just waiting for the weather to cool and I'll plant some kale and snap peas, with one hand if need be, because they do well in cooler weather. It has been a busy week and a busy summer but I still haven't learned all the skills I wanted to this year. I feel somewhat like the gardens, a little tired but I can't stop because I've chosen to be fully engaged in the urban farm experiment. I'm not sure what this surgery will do to my posts as I'm right handed and I'll not be able to use that hand for some time. I hope you continue to check in because Kathy and I aren't done learning and there's more we want to share.