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We only have room for a small garden. I envy your large one, Chocomouse! Does the fishing line also work for the young deer?
My husband has some land in the Indiana classified forest program, and the deer are often destructive of his trees--and also of some rare plant life (like eating endangered orchids). In our yard, they also have chewed on non-garden plants that we are trying to keep. It seems to help with those if we scatter coffee grounds around those plants. The deer do not seem to like the smell.
On Wednesday afternoon, I made four cups of strawberry jam, using my Bell jam maker and the Bell large electric canning pot (pot sits on a base and has a spigot for draining into the sink). I had about 1/3 Cup left over, so I refrigerated it, and I’m thinking it will go well with biscuits or scones tomorrow morning. As an experiment, I did my canning in the garage apartment kitchen. It worked well in that I was away from distraction. The downside was that due to some delays, I had dinner in the oven, so I had to do some running back and forth, and the meat got a bit overdone. These strawberries, maybe because they are so fresh, made absolutely magnificent jam (I licked a spatula), and my husband who walked in and sniffed said, "That smells amazing!"
The recipe I use is the lower sugar one from the booklet that came with the jam maker. I like the jam maker, although it only makes four cups or so at a time, because I do not have to stand over the stove and stir. Since we do not eat a massive amount of jam, small batches work for us.
I've not tried canning anything other than jam and blueberry pie filling. Perhaps the Farmers Market will inspire me. We do freeze a lot of blueberries.
