BurbGarden
  • Burb Garden
  • About and Legal

BurbGarden

Suburban Garden Blog for Frugal Ideas in a Small Garden

Contact

Fall Equinox

9/23/2015

0 Comments

 
Obviously, seasonal changes in weather have a direct effect on gardening.  Less light per day and cooler temperatures will affect all plants from trees to tomatoes.  The Fall Equinox is also called the mid season harvest.  One ancient name is Mabon.  Another is Harvest Home.   

It is not the final harvest of the year but most fruit crops are done for the year.  Even here in the warm Mid-Atlantic most of the summer plants are approaching the end of their lives.  But, this is a great time to plan and winter crops like leafy greens and garlic.  It is the best time to plan locations for new tree seedlings. The best time to plant trees is while they are dormant later in the fall but before the first freeze.  This is a good time to plant new Mums and see the established Mums flower. 

The equinox is the day that all areas of the planet get an even 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark.  This normally happens every day at the equator.  The rest of the planet only gets to see this twice a year at the first day of Spring and Fall.  Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we will now see less sun each day until the Winter Solstice.  In the Southern Hemisphere, this is reverse.  They are entering Summer.   

The Astronomy Section on AccuWeather shows there is 12.07 hours of sun today.  

http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/midlothian-district-va/23113/astronomy-weather/2111281 

Weather.com has some good information on how the equinox works and how it affects Earth and everyone on it. 

http://www.weather.com/science/nature/news/fall-autumnal-september-equinox 

 

Powering Down the Chickens in 3....2....1. 

Chickens literally go to bed and wake up with the sun.  Less hours of daylight will mean less hours awake and fewer eggs laid.  We could cheat nature and put a light in their hen house.  However, I like giving them the natural downtime on egg production.  Over the last few weeks they have been eating more than their usual amount of food.  I have noticed that the chicken feeder seems to be getting empty faster.  This is natural behavior as they are bulking up for winter.  I have added more protein and carbs to their treats by giving them meal worms, cat food, leftover homemade bread, and leftover brown rice.  


0 Comments

Canning

9/6/2015

0 Comments

 
Like most years we have been canning tomatoes.  The vines begin to produce the first ripened tomatoes in  July and usually continue into September. This year we have canned many from our 20X20 garden and many from a family member's larger garden.  This has resulted in over a month of canning through the middle of July into August.  In fact, we have been so busy canning, we have had no time to write about it! 

For anyone interested in a little trivia, tomatoes are a fruit not a vegetable.  As the saying goes "knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing it does not go in a fruit salad" 

Of course we used some to make salsa but the tomato is a versatile food.  The rest became plain sauce and chopped tomatoes since they have many uses in cooking.  We also found a great way to shorten the time to make tomato sauce.  We passed the tomatoes through a juicer, and then reduced the juice down to sauce consistency.  This bypasses the tasks of crushing, boiling, and straining.  Since we processed about 50 pounds of tomatoes a week this year, any time saving technique was welcome.

We had some visiting help from the writer at The Sane Kitchen Blog   http://thesanekitchen.blogspot.com  for one of our canning sessions.  She pointed out that while growing and preserving food for some is a hobby, it is also a great way to control what is in your food.  If someone is avoiding items used as spices and additives in commercial products, gardening and canning can help them do that.  There are no unknown ingredients if one created the entire product from seed to can. 

This year we had tomatillos and canned salsa verde.  Tomatillos are also referred to as Mexican Husk Tomatoes.  Once out of their husks they resemble green tomatoes.  The flavor is mild and a little sweet.  They do not have to be blanched and peeled like tomatoes which saves some time.  We could not find a salsa verde mix packet so we had to make the salsa verde from scratch.  This involves a lot of hot pepper chopping.  We recommend gloves and goggles. 

  There are good recipes and canning instructions through the University of GA Website.  http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_salsa/tomatillo_green_salsa.html  and http://nchfp.uga.edu/links/new_mexico.html. 

They are working closely with the New Mexico State University Extension program to publish home canning and food preservation instructions. There is more information on their website. http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_e/. 

 




Picture
This was just one week.
0 Comments
    Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links to products I recommend. If you purchase something from this page, I may receive a small percentage of the sale. 

    Archives

    September 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    June 2018
    April 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    May 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Gallery

    Categories

    All

    ​Disclosure: The links on this webpage are affiliate links, meaning, Burbgarden will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.