Beet Juice! Beet Juice! Beet Juice!

Now I want to watch Beetlejuice...but never mind that. Today, I spent my late morning canning. It's something that I've been doing for the better part of two weeks. See it's one thing to grow or harvest vegetables and fruits, quite another to store said items. Needless to say, the pantry is beaming with canned goods to the point that DB called me a "prepper." Um...not even close. But getting there. The shelves are stocked with strawberry margarita jam, peach jam, peaches, applesauce (reg. & spiced), apple butter, dill relish, daikon, salsa verde, and my newest adventure, beets.

I've never played with beets before. Sure, my grandmother would try to get me to eat store bought commercially canned beets and I would have none of it. But after asking a friend about beets and pickling them, I decided to give it a go. Picking up a bunch from the farmer's market on Saturday, I got started on my adventure...this morning. What? It's Labor Day weekend. I spent most of my time away from home with family...swimming....and going to RenFairs....

So, beets. When I read that beets would stain whatever it could leak it's juices onto pink, I didn't think it would be that bad...I think I should just cut my nails now before I go to work instead of having my boss ask why my fingers are bright pink. Best to avoid that situation if possible. And when I removed the jars from the water bath, one decided he didn't like being upright and for a second there I thought all hope was lost as juice dribbled out. But the seal took, I just made sure to label that one as the "tipper" so it gets eaten first. As far as I know all the juice is cleaned up and the sink doesn't even look that bad. The interesting part is going to be trying these home canned beets.

Final Thoughts

Don't forget that it's not too late to start sowing for the fall harvest. Great ones to think about are carrots, Swiss Chard, Spinach and other short term, cool crop varietals. Right about now the pumpkin vines should start to die back and the fruit themselves begin to finish off their color. Our 'Sugar Pies' are almost ready for harvest!! Lastly, I leave you with the double headed sunflower. Yes, double. The individual heads grew together to form this:

A double headed sunflower.

Fun in the house

The snow just keeps coming giving us nothing to do outside.  As a result we've taken to giving a lot of attention to the houseplants, which at times can be messy...Case in point putting the ivy into a bigger pot last night.  The poor thing needed a new home; however, now it's in the jungle of the dining room instead of its lone window in the kitchen.  The humidity of the sink and the sunshine caused a massive growth spurt for the plant.  However, it now has to deal with the cramped space; however, there are three plant lights (yes, I said three) in the dining room for all the foliage.  My boyfriend jokes that we should release the zebra finches and get a water feature to make it into a tropical aviary complete with ambiance.  I don't know how I feel about that...

But I do have to figure something out about all the plants since I'm going to be starting seedlings soon and my citrus plants should be here in March/April.  I know, I know that's a few months away but sometimes I forget (aka procrastinate) about projects, so the sooner the better.  In addition, we've been eyeballing the small plants at the local supermarkets and stores.  Only because when you walk into my mother-in-laws apartment there are a butt-ton of plants to the point where they're on the floor.  I'm slightly jealous but then I'm not the greatest with houseplants.  I have a tendency to kill them....oops. 

What are you doing to keep busy this January?  Are you looking at the discounted plants as well?