peppers

Preservation classes!

/ Elizabeth / Leave a comment

Hi! Would you like to learn how to can and preserve your own food? Come take a fun preservation class with me! I teach small-group classes (never more than eight guests) in our dedicated studio space. We learn a lot! We eat delicious food! We build community and self-reliance!

Peaches / Saturday, August 16 / 9AM-11AM / Showcasing our area’s legendary local peaches! Learn the basics of water-bath canning, plus how to dry and freeze peaches. Opening a jar of home-canned peaches in frigid January is a beacon of warm sunlight!

Jams & Chutneys / Saturday, August 30 / 9AM-11AM / You need homemade jam to enjoy with your homemade sourdough! Learn the basics of water-bath canning, plus how to make delicious homemade jams, chutneys and condiments.

Tomatoes / Saturday, September 13 / 10AM-12PM / Preserved tomatoes are an incredibly versatile addition to your home pantry. Learn the basics of water-bath canning, plus how to dry and freeze tomatoes. This class showcases our farm’s heirloom tomatoes (grasshopper-permitting)!

Salsas & Hot Sauces / Saturday, September 27 / 10AM-12PM / What to do with all those peppers? Learn the basics of water-bath canning, plus how to make delicious mild and spicy condiments like salsa, hot sauce and chile powder. Featuring our farm’s unique peppers and heirloom tomatoes!

Apples / Saturday, October 11 / 10AM-12PM / Keep the Applefest vibes rolling and enjoy more local apples! Learn the basics of water-bath canning for applesauce and apple pie filling, plus how to dry and freeze apples.

Fermentation, Vinegar & Kombucha / Saturday, October 25 / 10AM-12PM / Learn the basics of fermentation, and make your own incredible homemade vinegars and kombuchas! Sauerkraut and pickles, too!

If you would like more information on these or any other cooking classes or events, please send me a message!

The season in review

/ Elizabeth / 3 Comments

It’s surprisingly cold now, in late November, although dry and clear. As always, we’d love for some of the snow blanketing other parts of the country (hello, six feet in Buffalo!) to bestow its generosity upon us here, but nothing shows in the forecast as yet. Days are crisp and blue, and nights definitely require extra quilts. The sunroom is still full of cardboard trays of slowly ripening tomatoes and peppers; this unheated room works perfectly for cold storage and allows these vegetables to ripen slowly with sunlight but without so much warmth that they’d rot. Certainly something is sacrificed in terms of flavor when crops aren’t allowed to ripen outside, but we have a reasonably short growing season here so we have to work with what we have – and it’s a lovely treat to enjoy our own fresh tomato salads well into winter.

Those cardboard trays are slowly transforming into rustic, delicate ristras and canning jars of salsa and sauce; seeds are mostly dried and packed away. The winter squash bounty hasn’t been tapped into yet; that will carry us through the coldest months and into fragile spring with warming soups and curries. New planting rows for next year have been plowed and filled with compost. The plants we pulled out have been mowed into bits to break down into compost over winter; the beds have been mulched with spent straw and next year’s garlic has been planted. In all ways, our season is gradually winding down and we’re more than ready to tuck ourselves in for a couple of months of much-needed rest.

We’re still reviewing our season, cataloguing our successes and noting what changes and improvements we plan to make for next year. This year certainly had its challenges, but it definitely offered wins, too! Read on for more about the 2022 growing season.

Continue reading →