Wow! I was amazed when my Marine Corps veteran got down on his knees and asked me to marry him! We’ve had a very neat partnership for the last two years that is unique, to say the least. All so often, we are thinking the same thing, want to try the same thing, or decide on the same thing without the other knowing about it. Then we have a laugh and go about accomplishing it, from our orchard to the peppers we want to grow, to our future life together. Needless to say, I’m very happy and am now sporting an engagement ring that’s garden-tough but etched beautifully with the words “Always and Forever,” along with a small diamond inside a heart. Very touching!


Meanwhile, back on Earth, Will and David went out again this weekend and got another huge load of that great black ash firewood. While they were gone, I canned up 16 half-pints of baked beans. I was getting low and thought I’d better get more canned up for summer meals. I’ll be doing another batch tomorrow.

(No, we haven’t set a date yet.)

Readers’ Questions:

Making pectin

I just read your article about making pectin from apples. My question is, Can you make pectin from dried apples? And can you can the pectin? How would you store pectin to use later?

Celia Combest
Troy, Michigan

Pectin is best made from fresh, solid, tart apples that are a little on the green side. Tart crabapples make the best pectin. To make it, slice whole, unpeeled apples into fairly small pieces. Then add water and lemon juice and boil. (You’ll want about 6 pounds of apples to 1/2-gallon of water and 4 Tbsp. lemon juice.) Boil until reduced by half, then strain the juice through a jelly bag. Return to heat and simmer for 20 minutes longer. Pour into hot, sterilized canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Process as for apple juice in a water bath canner.

The amount you’ll use in a recipe depends on the pectin content of the fruit. For apple jelly, you won’t even need any; for strawberry, you’ll need more, as strawberries are low in pectin. Generally, about 2/3 cup of homemade pectin will set 4 cups of fruit or juice, but you’ll have to experiment and check the set as the mixture boils by taking out a teaspoonful and cooling it. You may need to add more pectin if it doesn’t seem to be setting to your liking. — Jackie

Inexpensive greenhouse

What would be an inexpensive greenhouse that we could put on a 2 city lot property? I would love to have fresh veggies all year round. I live in Montana and the weather can get pretty cold in the winter so it would need to be something that could keep the produce from freezing.

Heather Sand
Fairfield, Montana

You might consider adding a greenhouse onto your home, preferably on the south side. What’s worked out well for us is to use recycled double pane sliding glass doors from patio doors. For nice looks, make sure they don’t leak moisture; they should be clear throughout. Dirt comes off; you can not easily get the moisture and dirt from between the panes of glass. By building the framework of your greenhouse addition out of pressure treated or cedar wood and the roof of double insulated poly (made for greenhouses; rigid, not just plastic sheeting), you can heat mostly with heat from your home, with a little extra help in coldest weather from another heat source. A small propane heater works well in greenhouses.

Our greenhouse attached to our home, long ago at our Minnesota farm, had two feet of rock in a dugout area, as well as a 500-gallon black poly septic tank full of water as heat sinks. I heated the 16×40-foot greenhouse with a fuel-barrel wood stove.

The one we have now is an addition on the south side of our house, with no additional heating required as it’s only about 12 feet from our living room wood stove and right next to our kitchen range.

There are all kinds of options available to you and I’m sure with thought and planning, you can come up with one that will work well for you. — Jackie

Yearly canning list

I am getting geared up for canning this summer. I canned a lot of different things last summer and have really enjoyed eating them this year. I feel like I’m forgetting to can something. For instance, I had to purchase mixed veggies last week so I added that to the list for this summer. Would you post a list of all the things you can each year?

Jennifer B.
Bay Minette, Alabama

Whew! I’m sure I’ll forget something, but here goes:
Asparagus, green and wax beans, sweet corn, corn and carrots (mixed), corn and peas (mixed), mixed vegetables with corn, peas, carrots, potatoes, rutabagas and onions, tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, two or more different salsas, corn and pepper salsa, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauces (with meat, without meat, with olives, with mushrooms, etc.), chili (with and without beans), tomatoes with corn and rice, mushrooms, chicken, chicken broth, turkey, turkey broth, baked beans, pintos, split pea soup, bean soup, chicken with noodle soup, meatballs in mushroom sauce, meatballs in spaghetti sauce, ground meat, ground meat patties, sausage, sausage patties, stewing beef, stewing venison, venison chunks, venison roast, beef roast, beef broth, roast pork loin, celery, peas, potatoes, carrots (chunk and sliced), cabbage, blueberries, apples, applesauce, peaches (when I can find cheap ones in bulk to can!), cauliflower, rutabagas.

Pickles include: mustard bean, dill, sweet dill, bread and butter, dill relish, watermelon rind sweet pickle, pickled hot peppers, pickled hot vegetables, and end of garden mixed pickles.

Jams and jellies include: Chokecherry, red and black raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, wild plum, apple, and hot pepper jelly.

I can some things every year; others I can when I have it or when I’m getting down on. I can pretty much year-around and don’t kill myself with canning marathons. I just keep plugging away, batch at a time, as I have an available food. As I’ve told you, I’m sure I’ve forgotten lots, but this is a list for you. — Jackie

Planting fruit trees and berries

I have bought a house to retire to in Lavergne, Tennessee in about 2 years. What I would like to do is plant now a couple of fruit trees and some fruit plants (berries?) to help them take root in the next 2 years. Do you have any suggestions/recommendations as to what trees and berries to plant?! Thank You for ANY help you can provide. I am a 63 year old Los Angeles city boy!

Bob Dohrman
North Hollywood, California

Congratulations, Bob! My first question is do you have someone to take care of your trees while you’re still living in California? That’s the hardest part of long-distance planting. I thoroughly understand the desire and need to get things going as soon as possible. If you do have a friend, relative, or neighbor who will help you out by weeding and watering your trees and berries, great. If not, I’d say wait until you are there to tend them. They just don’t do well, simply planted, watered, and left on their own.

As you are in a warm zone, the sky’s the limit for choices, as I see it. (We live in cold Zone 3, so we don’t have huge options. You’ll be in Zone 6-7, so you can plant oh-so-many things! You can grow pie and sweet cherries, apples (pick ones suited to your warmer climate), plums, pears, and peaches. Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and black raspberries also will do well for you there.

If you aren’t able to enlist a helper to tend your plantings, you might consider preparing your spots very well by tilling the soil, killing down weeds and grass with black plastic (left in place for a lengthy time), adding compost to the spots, etc. Those two years will fly by and you’ll be ready, immediately, to get those fruits and berries going. And because you’ll be there to tend them, they’ll take off like bullets. — Jackie

Water glass eggs

What do you know about and what are your thoughts on “Water Glass eggs” as a way of preserving fresh eggs? What about safety?

Sandra Passman
Vidalia, Louisiana

Water glassing does preserve fresh eggs from fall to spring. However, after using it once, I quickly decided not to do it again. Diving my bare arm into a crock full of slimy yuck and fishing around for eggs is not at the top of my list! My chickens now lay all winter, where in the past, I went egg-less from about December to early March. I changed this by installing one CFL in the coop which runs when our generator is on. It could also be hooked to a deep cycle battery and run off of that, if necessary. Having a warmer coop helps a lot. Now we have many birds in a 6×8-foot coop with daytime outdoor access. Our new coop will be larger but it will also be insulated. I also give my hens one small flake of leafy trefoil or alfalfa hay every day to scratch through. It’s amazing how much they eat! In addition, I am growing extra squash and I feed them at least one squash with seeds or “squash guts” every few days. Our 24 hens give us 7-12 eggs a day (no commercial egg mash) all winter. I find this much better than using waterglass to hold eggs in my basement. Fresh eggs will remain good for many weeks, simply stored in a cool place. I have kept eggs from December until nearly April, just keeping them in cartons, in our 40 degree pantry, and they remain good. — Jackie

46 COMMENTS

  1. Nancy,

    I don’t really have a recipe for those beans; I cook by taste! But here’s what I put in the canned beans; about 4# of navy beans, soaked, boiled 3 minutes, set out for 2 hours and drained, with a little more water added, 1 quart of tomato sauce, basil, 3 chopped onions, 1 Tbsp minced garlic, molasses, brown sugar, chopped ham, salt and pepper. I simmered it all together, tasting as it heated. (The beans were still hard.) Then I canned ’em up. Pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. I really like canning dry beans and making “instant meals” of them. Meals in a jar!

    Jackie

  3. Congratulations to you both. Marines sometimes have that nice soft part to them; I am so glad you found one. My hubby just told me to tell you that he hopes Will stays as kind and loving after the marriage as he has been all this time. I agree and somehow believe that is what will happen. You both deserve a great time life in time together. We are so very happy for you.

  4. Congratulations Jackie! I wish you had a pic of Will on one knee. I have been reading your blog for a very long time, and I enjoy it so much. My husband and I had a good ole country wedding in 2002, here at our home in Tenn. on horseback. We might have found each other late in life, but some how it feels like we have known each other a lifetime. I am so happy for you both and may God bless your life together.
    Can’t wait to hear about your wedding plans. WooHoo!

  6. Wow, can’t wait for wedding pictures in the magazine. I am so happy for you both. Will is getting a really special partner for always and forever.

  8. Great news! Wishing you the very best as you continue your life together. About those peppers…if you haven’t tried Jimmy Nardello Italian pan roastng (not hot) peppers, get some good seed and get them started indoors. There are so many strains that good seed makes a difference in the pepper you get. They will need your WallOWaters at transplant time and should be several months old when you put them out. And they will need fall protection to finish ripening all the peppers on a plant. There’s no other pepper like it or close to it in taste. This pepper has the most complex intense set of flavors, the flavors intensify with pan roasting. They can be dried or frozen (don’t know about canning or pickling), and will improve the taste of anything you put them in, raw or cooked.

  10. Oh, Jackie, congratulations!!!! (Oops, I know that should actually be felicitations to you, congratulations to Will!) I am so, so happy for you both I could burst! After everything you’ve been through, this is the fairytale ending you deserve. Wishing you happily ever after!!!!!

  11. Yea, may you have many more years of happiness and doing things together! My guy and i got married when i was 50 and he was 48, been 8 years of wedded bliss, and even tho this this the 3rd for both of us, we are together on so many things it is scarey! lol! have a blast feeling like a newlywed!

  13. Congratulation, Jackie! My best wishes for happiness to you both.

    And thanks for all that you do. You are a lifeline in a lonely world.

  14. Oorah!! Congratulations to you both! My son is a Marine and as I have learned from him, once a Marine always a Marine, and we are all family. Although I felt like you are my older sister (I don’t have any sisters, so I claim them from other places) from reading all of your blogs and many of your books, now I know we are family through the Marines. May you have many happy years and remain Semper Fi!

  18. How COOL!!!! Congratulations to you both……

    Alot has happened in those brief years together, good and sad; you already are a solid team :) so this is a mere formality….

  22. Yay! So happy for you both! I love your blog and check it everyday for new things. I grinned from ear to ear when I read this. My husband is a marine corps veteran and I can’t think of anyone else on earth I would rather have by my side through good and bad. You too make a wonderful pair and it’s so fantastic when you get to marry your best friend.

    Tell Will he made a wise choice not to let you get away.

    Congrats from Texas and here’s to many, many wonderful years together!

  23. Congratulations!!! It’s about time for you to have someone to share life’s difficult and happy times with Jackie. Hope most of the difficult stuff is behind you now.

  24. Congratulations! I wish you well. Those beans looked wonderful. Can you give me the recipe? Please?

  25. That’s such wonderful news Jackie. You two were made for each other! Congratulations!

  26. I have never commented before but I read your blog faithfully. And a big WOOHOO on the proposal! I am so happy for you and may God bless you both.

  27. Congratulations! I was rather hoping this would happen – you seemed like a great team together.

    Nancy

  31. Congrats, Jackie! I found your blog a couple of years ago, and so enjoy it when–right in the middle of all this great canning, etc–you drop in little personal bits … this one in particular! May you both find all the joy it sounds like you’ve already found … for all eternity :)

  38. This is most wonderful news. This sounds like a match made in heaven.
    Congratulations to both of you.

  40. Best wishes Jackie and congratulations to Will. Can’t wait to see how you do a homestead wedding!

  43. Bless your heart and congratulations to you both! It took me 50 years to find my Bill so I totally understand…! Bills/Wills ROCK!! (My two sisters are married to Bills…LOL)

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