Florida Its Cold down Here

Two days of cold weather is all I think I can stand.  Wednesday high of 40 something but at least it did not get down to a freezing temperature.  Saved my kerosene for the future.  I bought a kerosene heater for the greenhouse not knowing the kerosene cost 5.99 per gallon.


Drizzle Drizzle rain THAT made the cold even colder.  Today it will be warmer and in the 80's by the weekend. 


R planted the potatoes and carrots on Wednesday even though it was cold and rainy. Guess he doesn't mind the cold and rain.   

A Few Pics of Our Garden in January

Hydroponic lettuce

 

 

 

 

Hydroponic strawberries

Can't wait for the Brussels sprouts to get larger.  First time growing these

carrots turned beautiful

The last few days have been weather perfect here in Florida.  It rained a little on Tuesday morning but the afternoon turned out great.  While it was raining I decided I had better get those ugly carrots canned.
 First I scraped them clean and sliced them up. 

After I scraped them clean they did not look so odd.



While I was working on this I had my jars sterilizing in my canner.
. 
Canning carrots is very easy to do.

1.  scrap and clean the carrots

2. sterilize jars, lids, funnel, spoon, lifter.  I just throw it all in the enamel canning pot together with enough water to cover the top and just let it boil until I am ready to use.

3. Place the carrots in a pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let boil for about 5 minutes.

4.  Then pack carrots with enough liquid to cover but leave half inch head space.  Put half teaspoon of pickling salt in each jar. Place seal and ring on jar and place in pressure cooker canner.

5. After pressure cooker starts to put out steam time for ten minutes-- then after ten minutes let cooker build to 11 pounds pressure -- time for 25 minutes for pints. This is the time and pressure for my altitude in Florida.

 

After pressure canner has cooled completely remove jars and let them sit for 24 hours. Wash outside of jars, remove the rings. label the jar, and the carrots are ready for storage.

You might think a lot of work for six jars but I know where the carrots came from and how they were grown and processed. 

That is Some Crazy Looking Carrots

Our carrots just wouldn't grow so my sister sent me some hers.  I'm not sure how she grew such crazy looking carrots but here is what they look like.

 

 

Really  can I laugh at hers when my carrots

look like this

 

 this is a picture of one of the few that actually came up in the garden..  PawPaw followed all the rules for planting carrots which included watering them every morning and every evening until they sprouted.  He watered and watered but only a few sprouted.  Might as well blame it on bad seed. 

 

Headed to the kitchen to work on my crazy carrots. 

 

more about oranges

Yesterday when I did my quick post of what I did with all the oranges-- I forgot about my orange marmalade.  That is the great part about living in Florida-- People have oranges and people love to share.  This time of year we have access to more oranges than we can eat fresh.  So I try to be as creative as possible in preserving my oranges and grapefruits.


I followed the receipe in my bread machine recipe book.  Yes I made the marmalade in my bread machine ( that little white machine behind my jar of marmalade)

This is the entire batch that comes out of the bread machine recipe. 

I do love my bread machine because it does so many things such as  bread, rolls, pizza dough, and jams.  I have to say it is worth the 35.00 I paid for it. 

Fresh bread and homemade marmalade

What the Garden looks like after the Cold Weather

Well it is finally warming up after a couple of days of cold weather.  Happy I live in Florida and not up north. We went overboard protecting our garden but as I like to say better safe than sorry. 

What I did with all those oranges

This is my juicer--looks pretty --takes a lot of work to juice a huge box of oranges though.  I put my fresh juice in quart mason jars and left plenty of space for it to expand.  It taste as good as fresh when it is thawed.  We make sure we drink it within two days. 

I sliced some of the oranges and put them in my dehydrator.  I love to put the slices in plain water but it  also  tastes great in ice tea. 

We also have a large supply of pink and red grapefruit.  These work great in the dehydrator and as frozen juice too.

Freezing Green Tomatoes and Getting Ready for Storm Ion

Storm Ion is on his way and for us Florida folks we are preparing like it is a hurricane not a winter storm.  Well not prepping exactly like a hurricane but just as much work is involved in getting ready for the steep drop in temperature.
We decided to pick a lot of our green tomatoes and put them in the freezer. They are great for making fried green tomatoes.  First wash tomatoes and slice into 1/4 inch slices, second place on flat tray and place in freezer for a couple of hours, and  finally when the slices are frozen place them in a freezer bag and keep frozen until use.  To use thaw slightly and coat with your choice of flour, cornmeal, or bread crumbs.  Fry in hot oil , drain , and salt to taste.  I love my fried green tomatoes topped with feta cheese. 

yep it started out with a high of 70 and will end the day with a low of 27.  If we can survive until Friday we will be okay.  This is our first really cold weather for this season and at least it waited until January.  Back in November we had a day of cold weather and R didn't want to take a chance on loosing any of his tomatoes so we put the plastic up on the sides of the greenhouse.  Of course with 80 degree days we had to take down part of the plastic. So this morning in our short sleeve shirts and shorts we put all of the plastic back up and transferred what plants we could to the greenhouse.

 

Leaving only enough space for his heater

 

Yesterday we picked all the vegetables that were ready and put them in the freezer.   I shredded  and diced the cabbage and blanched it for the freezer,  The shredded cabbage is for making egg rolls  and the diced cabbage I use in soups.

 The cabbage was grown in our NFT system.  Nutrient film technique (NFT) is a hydroponic technique wherein a very shallow stream of water containing all the dissolved nutrients required for plant growth .
We transfered the strawberries from the NFT system into the floating pond system which is inside the greenhouse.  Since this is our first year growing strawberries we are not sure how they will survive the cold.  So we decided to be safe and not sorry and placed the strawberries where we can keep them warm. 
Here are few more pics of various vegetables growing in our garden

Onions

brussell sprouts

Mustard Greens

Bok Choy

Hope all these vegetables survive the freeze tonight.

Tomorrow will only be in the low 40's so we will probably be inside all day.  This will be bad for R because he does not like to be inside.  Wonder what he will do all day.