As I’m a canner, I learned all that from both my Mom and Grandma. We don’t have a real Farmer’s Market. The weather killed my garden last year. I learned to get a shade cloth to put over my tomatoes and green beans. I will be using Food grade DE-Earth on the beans. I use it in my 9 hens’ food along with Probiotics in their water. I can control the salt and sugar too.
I learned how to can from my mom, too.
My garden did OK last year. Some stuff was fine but the usual stuff wasn’t. I didn’t even try tomatoes, and it turned out to be a good thing because it was so wet, I’d have lost the whole crop to blight.
I’ve also started pressure canning meat and some veggies. I just canned up some of my potatoes from last year to save them. Otherwise, we would not have eaten them fast enough to use them before they all spoiled.
The best thing is the herb garden. No knowing what
s in the store bought stuff. it takes a lot of work to harvest and dry herbs and make sure you’re not adding weeds to the mix.
I’m getting my garden in very early this year and keeping a good eye on the weather. We had an unexpected frost last night only because the forecast was not for so low, so tonight I’m ready. But getting the onions, lettuce, and potatoes in this early is a HUGE head start for me.