Last Christmas, I asked for a Food Saver to vacuum-seal my garden produce. Sticking it in the pantry, I figured I’d pull it out one day. The snow encrusted landscape made it improbable I’d see green anytime soon.
Green indeed came, and with it a garden that flourished. Well, not the broccoli (deer snipped the florets before they had a chance) and the peas were a little slack and the green beans were nothing to write home about. So what grew? Tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, corn, spinach and cucumbers.
Two plants of cucumbers are still, at the time of this column, producing enough so that the people I’d shared them with literally threw up their hands up and said, “Oh Kay. I’m all cuked-out.” Our pigs however, oink their pleasure at all the overgrown cukes I can throw their way.
We ate spinach until it flowered out and then planted another row. Late July, our corn was husked, sliced raw off the cob, baked and cooled and stored in the freezer in meal-sized helpings.
Baby carrots were enjoyed until they grew past baby stage when I decided I must do something about freezing them. Hence, finally the Food Saver was pulled from its box. Plugging it in, I looked at the buttons and switch and was dumbfounded. (Doesn’t take much.)
In my head, I heard my eldest say, “Mom. You have instructional YouTube videos right on your phone. Look it up.” He’s taught himself many things by watching instructions. I thought I’d give it a go.
My Food Saver was model FM2000 so plugging that in my search bar, up came a pleasant sounding woman (never saw her face) whose instructional YouTube had so many words it made me holler, “Could you please just get to the point?” I noticed her video was 19 minutes long.
I restarted my search and found a guy with a five-minute video, which sufficiently answered every question completely and with far fewer words. This is a guy/girl thing. I get it. We girls talk. In this case, too much talk made my head swim.
Finally understanding the how-to’s of my Food Saver, I turned to my recipe box to uncover last year’s notes. I write notes on how each year’s harvest turned out, the date I fussed with it, what worked, how long it took and any other helpful hints. (A girl-thing.) Last year my then-self wrote to my future self, “This isn’t too bad, don’t dread it!” Thanks, Kay.
Processing food is a process — preparing the ground, planting the seed, weeding, watering, thinning if needed and finally processing the produce. It’s a season-long endeavor. I love fresh garden food and if I can freeze it successfully, I can have almost-fresh all year long. While canning has never been my thing, I can freeze pretty well.
Carrots were dug out with help from my husband. The ground was hard and they were stubborn and my back started to hurt. A text, “Can you help me?” was answered with “yes.” What a lovely word.
Getting them all out, I rubbed them off dry first, then spray-hosed the rest of the dirt off. Carting a 5-gallon pail into the house, I chopped carrots until I was getting loopy. Starting an ice-cream pail full, I boiled a full pot for two minutes — then draining them, stuck them in a colander in an ice-water bath for another two minutes.
Spilling them out on a flour-sack towel and patting dry, I scooped them into quart vacuum seal bags and remembering my YouTube instruction, went through the process of vac/sealing. Squealing quietly with delight, I watched my stash of freshly dug freshly processed carrots grow. I did it. I was very noiselessly proud.
However, it didn’t go well right away. A few bags in, it seemed they weren’t sealing properly. Looking it over, I noticed the duct catching liquid was pretty full. My carrots were quite juicy. Pouring out the catch-all and wiping everything down helped tremendously (the guy didn’t tell me that) and thereafter my seals were sufficiently getting sealed.
Twenty quart-sized bags of carrots are in the freezer for hot dishes and soups, and once in a while for a side vegetable dish. Microwaving it hot, add a little salt and pepper and a dab of butter, and it’s almost garden-like.
Next is potatoes. I like to keep them in the ground as long as possible although not too long or they’d rot — too early and if we don’t eat them they grow sprouts, so there’s a fine harvest line I watch. Washing them off, I lay them in the warm sun to dry, turn over once and getting every one dry, stash them inside. They last a good long time. Garden potatoes are mealy and incredibly tasty.
With effort the harvest is so worth it. Watching YouTube videos helps and writing encouraging notes to self keeps me smiling.
(“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.
Farm Life From a Farm Wife
