Your marmalade looks awesome! Yesterday I made some mustard pickled eggs. The hens have been laying like crazy! I still need to do four more cartons of eggs for another pickled batch.

I need to try making some of that marmalade sometime. I've never seen a Seville orange though. :p Do you cut by hand or use some tool??? I cut by hand and although I have good knife skills, my marmalade rind always seems too thick. I saw an old 'antiques road show' recently and they had a marmalade cutter. By the shape of it, I can't even imagine how it worked.... it was a large flat triangular-shaped cast-iron "tool" with some kind of sliding handle mounted on top. lol!

Never had a pickled egg, either! Just never presented with the opportunity. :) I wish you were near for your hens' eggs!!!!

I cut by hand. Luckily we like a chunky marmalade. Food processor cuts too small and makes mush.

It's fiddly stuff to make involving depithing and chopping the peels. But it's only once a year and I've never tasted a commercial marmalade with the zing of homemade. They're usually too sweet and gelatinous for us.

Over here pickled eggs are a feature of the counters in fish and chip shops and old school pubs. But they're always in plain malt vinegar.

You got me thinking about making some maralade from some of my Kuquates. I will need some help... IF I can twist someone's arm.

I've never heard of mustard pickled eggs. Are they preserved? Shelf stable?

I remember seeing jars of pickled eggs at local bars when I was a kid... they looked ordinary, not like those pretty mustard pickled eggs that Sharon made. Even matthias_lang took notice and I searched on-line for recipes. lol!

I've never eaten commercial marmalade, but have made 3-fruit, grapefruit, orange, and lemon myself. All were hand cut and IMO had too-thick rinds. lol! I think I get bored with it and start cutting thicker to get it done with. :O)

Kate, if you weren't more than 3000 miles away, I'd help you. Although it might end up cut too thick. :)

The mustard pickled eggs are put in the refrigerator and shaken occasionally for a week, then ready to eat. It keeps in the frig for several months. We make a lot of different varieties of pickled eggs as hubby loves them. I like cutting them in half and putting them into salads. Here is two other batches we did in 2024, chili pepper sauce in white vinegar and the other pickling spice in apple cider vinegar. These both were processed in a 10 min water bath and stored for later eating. Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of processing eggs as it has not been officially tested, so this is a personal choice and works for us.

2024 Home Gardening · More Info

2024 Home Gardening · More Info

I would love to hear what everyone is putting up with their dehydrator! I am looking for some ideas to use my dehydrator for. 😂

Wow, people are still busy!

Sharon, I use my dehydrator a lot. THis year I dehydrated basic things like garlic, onions, apples, both sweet and hot peppers and some kale that I crumble up and add to meatballs and such. I also dehydrated some beans, like the Christmas Limas that just didn't seem to get dry when left on their own. In the past I've done LindaLou's zucchini candy, which the kids loved, and slices of zucchini sprinkled with some sriracha salt, which was a really nice snack for my husband.

Annie

Nothing this year. My dehydrator base melted and warped when I was drying garlic chips at 135F with only one rack. Need to buy a new one.

I've done most of the same things as Annie in the past as well as jerky, cherry tomatoes.

Thanks for the recommendations! Today I made fish cakes with speckle trout we received from a family member. It will go in the freezer for an easy meal later. Just take them out and fry in oil, yum!

Anyone busy 'putting up'? Great time to be in a warm kitchen with the cold weather outside! 🥶

I’ve been spending a lot of my time outdoors in the cold moving snow. We got around 5 feet in the first five days of the month, and it just won’t stop coming. The weight of the icy snow caused a large branch on my apple tree to break and tear, so I had to saw that back as far as I could reach. I hope the tree survives!

Wow PM, you have been busy with snow! It just started snowing this morning for the first time in a very long time here in Southern Louisiana. A rare event for us! Stay warm 🥰

Floral, I like marmalade a lot and have made it, but we don't have good citrus here very often, mostly it's trucked thousands of miles and not all that great when it gets here. Yours sure looks good!

We haven't had too much snow, but it's cold here. Right now it's 3F, low of -11F last night and it'll be that cold again tonight then moderate up into the more normal teens tomorrow. We've had flurries for a couple of days, and lots of blowing snow which compromises visibility and causes a lot of accidents, but no real accumulation other than the foot or so we have on the ground.

Jack, sorry about that dehydrator. I had a Harvest Maid that actually caught fire and melted, good thing it was in the garage! I've made jerky in the past but can't seem to quite get it right. It tastes good at first then seems to just lose flavor after a couple of weeks, so it needs to be eaten pretty quickly or doesn't taste like much.

I much prefer canning in January, so I dug some grape juice out of the freezer that's been there since 2021 and made 8 jars of grape jelly. Red raspberry will be next and I'm out of Habanero Gold, so my next trip to the grocery will require some habaneros and sugar. I did put 2 quarts of leftover chili in the freezer, although we processed beef in November and the freezers are pretty full.

I also found a couple of frozen jars of home rendered lard from 2017! That went right into the chicken bucket to add some fat and help them stay warm through this cold snap.

Meanwhile I'm sorting seeds and planning...

Annie

Still canning here, I finally finished the raspberry jam and some of Readinglady's Sweet and Hot Confetti jelly, a recipe she worked on that is similar to Habanero Gold except it makes a double batch, much more convenient as I can make a year's worth in a single batch!

I miss Carol/Readinglady, what a source of information! Plus she gave me my all time favorite canning jam recipe, her Old Fashioned Pear Preserves.

Annie

I'm still canning, I have milk crates full of potatoes that are sprouting in the back room storage, and I don't want them to go to waste. I'll keep some of the smaller ones for seed potatoes, but today I canned 7 quarts and 4 pints of Red Pontiac potatoes. I've never canned potatoes before, so I'm not sure how the texture will be or how to use them, I'll open a jar tomorrow and experiment!

If I like them, I'll can the crate full of Kennebecs that are still back there. I'm just not even going to think about peeling the fingerlings, LOL.

Annie

Annie, have you ever dehydrated your potatoes? BF discovered boxed scalloped potatoes sold at Aldi that he likes to have on hand. I believe it’s just a box of dehydrated sliced potatoes and perhaps a packet of some flavorings to add when it’s made and they’re surprisingly good!

I’m just busy using the things that I canned, froze, or dehydrated last summer. :)

Dehydrating potatoes is a lot of work but I've done it a few times.

You peel them and then slice them and then you have to blanch them for a couple minutes, drain well and pat dry before you put them on the racks. If you don't blanch then they will turn a nasty brown/grey while drying.

I've also dehydrated shredded potatoes for hash browns which is even more work but basically the same method.

PM, I have dehydrated potatoes, but as Jack mentioned, it's a lot of work plus you have to spend the time rehydrating when you cook them. When you mention it, though, I remember Mother loved those boxed scalloped potato things. My dehydrator is in my garage, though, and it's an unheated garage, so it's below zero out there and I have potatoes to deal with NOW. Like RIGHT NOW. :-)

I did drain a pint, rinse them, toss them into some hot oil and fried them and they were actually really good, I'd do that again!

Annie

Blanching before dehydrating is a lot of work, but so is all the work involved in canning! Glad your canned potatoes were a hit, Annie. BTW, that applesauce I canned was fabulous. Rather than reprocess it, I left it all with the original lids and put it the back of my fridge. Seals held and it was absolutely delicious and I’m just finishing the last jar now. :) I wish I could help with your excess of potatoes & eggs. Just don’t bother thinking that homemade potato chips will help because it only takes one medium potato to make a big ol’ pile of chips. lol!

Annie, you could host a potato salad competition!

Well, yes, I could host that competition but it's so darned cold here that no one wants to go anywhere!

I canned 7 more quarts of potatoes today, the last of the Kennebec. I'm interested to see the difference in those and the red Pontiacs after canning. Now all that's left back there are fingerlings and some Dakota Rose, which is storing better than either the reds or the Kennebecs, so I've kept them for cooking fresh.

Tomorrow I'm going to start roasting butternut squash and freezing the puree, several are getting somewhat "wrinkly", which means they are drying out. Time to deal with those. I think I'm going to plant leeks tomorrow too, inside in starter pots, of course!

Annie

The butternut squash was excellent here this year! — but I only bought two from the roadside stand before they suddenly closed. :)

Winter has been really bad here this year, Cold and too much snow. We just ended our second huge storm… 3 days of pounding snow and 30mph winds. It’s 4-5 feet deep with even higher drifts. Driving is super dangerous — can barely get through residential roads and can’t see over or around the huge piles of snow. I just read that a major grocery store near here has been closed for days due to the snow load on the roof. They will stay closed because they don’t know when/how they’ll get it removed. The building is only a few years old!

We don't have as much snow as you do, although north of us Gaylord (in Michigan) has gotten 180+ inches and are working on their all time snow record which was 185 inches. They may beat that this year.

Here it's cold. Usually February calves are OK, make sure they have dry bedding and they're good to go. The first one this year was born on a -3F day and Elery and I built the little "hut" so they could stay out of the wind. The second one was born at on the -20F day. (sigh) They both snuggle together in the little "hut" stuffed full of straw and seem to be OK. One calf left to be born, hopefully it's warmer, although it will probably be in a rainstorm or something, geez. And the wind this year has been incessant, 15 or 20 miles per hour nearly all the time. Right now it's sunny, which is unheard of in MIchigan in February, nearly 30F and wind is 7MPH. It's spring, for just a few hours, LOL.

I canned 7 quarts of Kennebec potatoes last night and roasted several of the butternut in the back room storage before they went bad. 4 quart bags of squash went into the freezer for quick breads, muffins or soup.

First I'm going to plant leeks and asters, maybe some of the giant columbine and dahlias. I just have to assemble shelves, hook up lights and test heat mats! Peppers will be planted mid March, tomatoes & eggplant the first part of April along with cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli and whatever else suits me!

Annie

I thought of this thread in a pub at the weekend.

I see the pickled eggs! 😂

Now I want to spend the afternoon in a bar, whether they have pickled eggs or not. lol!

I see the pickled eggs too, but I'm still smiling at the "butty bach" beer as my granddaughter told me that's what beer tastes like, LOL.

I do need to pickle some eggs in pickled beet brine before Easter, though, my Grandmother always did that and Mother and I liked them, although few others do. Too bad for them, more for me. Someone's gotta carry on the tradition now that Mom is gone!

Annie

My caretaker took me to Whole Foods; and I was able to buy all sorts of Chicken parts: wings; hearts; necks; a whole chicken and 2 # feet- "paws". (This totally grossed-out the caretaker when she saw what I wanted to buy.) I cooked-to-death a huge pot of everything. (I removed the dark meat from the cooked carcass and froze it.) Today a different caretaker helped me strain, pick-out the bones, and put all the strained stock into containers. ( None of this bothered her at all!) I ended-up with 7 Quarts of frozen stock .

Kate, that caretaker needed her food horizons widened, LOL, and you were just the right person for the job.

Good chicken stock never seems to last very long here, there are so many ways to use it.

I'm emptying more jars than I'm filling right now, that's probably a very good thing if you saw my pantry!

Annie

My asparagus patch is starting to produce about 1.5 lb. per day. I might be able to accumulate enough to pickle some this weekend if we can stop eating it for a few days.

I bought 10 chicks (layers) the day after I retired on April 1 so they are 4 weeks old now. One died on its second day so down to 9 now. They are getting big and a little crowded in the brooder already . I'll put them into the coop next week and then let them out into the run a couple weeks later.

I had to do some work on the coop to get it ready for them. We haven't had any since 2017 and a couple hail storms had poked holes in the corrugated plastic panels I had over the coop and run so I had to replace it. I put a new sub floor in the coop due to the water damage and covered that with a piece of linoleum I had laying around. Build a new poop board for under the roosts and a new ramp between the coop and run.

In August I should start getting eggs. They will only cost me about $15/dozen. LOL

Rather late, but I've just noticed the comment about 'Butty bach'. It's actually a Welsh beer and in Welsh the words mean 'little friend'. 'Bach' is pronounced like the composer. As to the taste of beer, I'm sad that it's not appreciated. Nothing like a delicious cool pint imo after a long walk in the countryside. Maybe the granddaughter will grow to appreciate it. Not the iced, fizzy gnat's pee served as 'beer' in some places, but a proper brew with a decent complex flavour.

Jack, you'll have to recoup your "sunken costs" before your egg costs go down and then factor in your hours of labor. (grin) Congratulations on the retirement, I've been enjoying playing in the dirt and talking to the cows, I heartily recommend that.

Thanks for the explanation, Floral. I used to own a bar and we would get a "Bock" beer annually. It was dark, strong and seasonal, the distributor only had it at a certain time each year. Now that small micro-breweries are everywhere, it's generally available year round. Anyway, I thought that was how it was pronounced and that we just mangled the spelling, as we tend to do.

Maybe her taste is genetic because I just generally dislike alcohol, from liquor to wine to beer. My 7 year rule requires to me keep trying at least once every 7 years, but I just haven't learned to like any of it yet. Perhaps when I grow up, LOL.

Annie

I don't think of beer as alcohol.😉 It's my preferred delicious thirst quencher after walking. I have to be thirsty to enjoy it. On the other hand I hate sodas, especially cola. Too sweet, too fizzy and too artificial tasting to me.

Yum.

As to 'putting up'. If freezing counts I've done a few boxes of wild garlic pesto. The season is short but its nice to have a taste of spring later in the year.

Oh yes, freezing absolutely counts! I've been eating the neighbor's parsley/mint pesto leftover from Easter dinner on roasted potatoes, very yummy.

Elery agrees with you on the beer. He doesn't care for it unless it's hot and he's thirsty, then he says a cold beer is really good. I still prefer ice water, LOL, because I'm a peasant. The proliferation of small artisan breweries has provided a plethora of "flavors" from coffee to blueberry, but that doesn't really sound good to me either. Blueberry beer?

Annie

Yuk. I like beer flavoured beer. Although I do drink a lot of water it doesn't give any energy after a long day's walking.

Well, no beer here, but I did can 5 pints of pickled asparagus. Lots more coming up, and we've eaten one batch, so the season is starting. Next it'll be garlic scapes and strawberries.

Annie

No one else? I just made 8 half pints of strawberry freezer jam, some garlic scape pesto and put 2 gallon sized bags of asparagus in the freezer.

Annie

We were without power with high temps of 94 from 9:15am Sunday until 2:30pm Monday, so I was happy to just make coffee. :) I did harvest my garlic scapes last night though!

Re processing our harvest, this is about half of the basketry willow I’m preparing for a large class tomorrow. I’ve never prep’d so much willow at once so I’ve got it soaking everywhere. lol! wish me luck!

Annie

My garlic never came up this year...not a single plant. I think it froze out from some below zero temps we had last winter. I never mulched it but I've had it survive similar temps without mulch before and do fine. So, no scapes for me. I may order some new bulbs this fall.

I've pulled 95% of my onions and got a decent but not great crop. The red onions never seem to get very big but the white and yellow do great.

I'll start harvesting some leeks pretty soon and freeze them for use in stir fry Chinese and soups.

I stopped harvesting gus in early June but since then the deer have been eating the tops of the spears as they come up so I'm not sure the crowns will survive. Fingers crossed. Never had that happen before.

PM, I hope your class went well, you're a brave woman! Your baskets are beautiful, though, so I think a class would be very popular.

Dang, Jack, I never mulch my garlic and it comes up every year in spite of the below zero nights we get here, I'm sorry you lost all of yours.

Onions haven't started bulbing yet here and the leeks are still too small to use, I won't start pulling onions until at least mid-August and that will be the sweet ones, the reds take even longer than that.

Hopefully your asparagus will survive the deer. Last year the deer nibbled the tops off several crowns of my asparagus after I carelessly left the fence open, but it still came back, so maybe yours will be OK. The deer are getting more brave all the time, I've been leaving the greenhouse door open thinking a deer wouldn't "trap" itself in a 5x12 greenhouse and sure enough, one ate the tops off a bed of carrots a couple of days ago and finished off some romaine. I keep announcing to them that if I have to feed them I'm going to eat them, but they do not seem scared. In fact, I think they are in collusion with the groundhogs who have eaten all the chives and 2 super hot Death Spiral pepper plants!

The horseradish, though, is coming along nicely, nothing seems to want to eat that, LOL.

Meanwhile, I rendered some pork fat and froze two pints of leaf lard.

Annie

Annie - I have to disagree on your comment about nothing eating horseradish....just yesterday I noticed my plants had a bunch of Japanese Beetles munching on them.

My local groundhog seems to have left my property. Haven't seen it for over a month. It might have been run off by my hens that have been out free ranging.

Jack, now I'll watch for the Japanese Beetles, although they mostly seem to want to eat the basil, nothing has ever touched that horseradish. Watch, this will now be the year that it'll all get eaten by something!

I only wish the groundhogs would move out. The only saving grace to having groundhogs is that at least they don't kill the chickens like the raccoons do. My chickens have never had anything to do with the groundhogs, they just kind of ignore them.

So, what did I can today? 6 quarts of beef stock, before the bones and scraps get buried. We'll be processing chickens next week sometime, so I'm trying to figure out what I have in the freezer before it gets buried.

Annie