Bee Balm and Dilly Beans!

2 Bumble bees on Bee Balm

Central Maine finally had summer this week! Temps hit high 80's F and we had a few days of sun. And so my garden just exploded and looks like a jungle; holy cow! Amazing what a little heat and sun will do. So I finally got to pick a good harvest of beans to make dilly beans. I also picked our first summer squash and sweet basil. I guess the cucumber beetles got the best of my zucchini plants because they look just awful. I picked a lot of beets, garlic, lettuce, radishes (although they were tough), Swiss chard, and thinned leeks and fennel. Also made lots of herbal teas :) My son loves herbal ice teas so I like to make it for him.

Some flowers near my house

I didn't weed the gardens this week like I should have since we had some pretty humid weather and tons of mosquitoes. I am also starting a new teaching position and spent quite a bit of time in my classroom getting ready. Between the warmth, sun, and lack of weeding the garden looks pretty unkempt and needs some major attention. But on a good note I made my first batch of dilly beans and plan to make pickled beets next.

One way to put food up from your garden, such as making dilly beans, is to can them. Canning is pretty simple but is a bit time consuming and you do need some special equipment. There are also some basic safety tips that are important. The goal of canning is to kill any microbes that may be present. To can you need to use what's called a hot water bath method or a pressure cooker method. I don't have a pressure cooker because to be honest they scare the heck out of me. But I may try to overcome that fear this year (or next;). So for now I use the hot water bath method; it's basically boiling the heck out of everything. Hot water bath limits what types of produce you can safely put up. You should only can high acid foods (foods below 4.6 on the pH scale; tomatoes fall at 4.2 so they are considered borderline) or foods that you alter to have high acidity, usually by adding vinegar which is very acidic. Tomatoes and most fruits are fine, that's good! Although I just learned that since there are lots of different types of tomatoes with different acidity levels the county extension service strongly recommends adding bottled lemon juice to your jars of tomatoes. And pickled veggies are fine. Corn with a pH of around 6 cannot be processed this way; it is too alkaline. But fresh creamed corn frozen is like no corn you have ever eaten! OMG! OK, back to canning; I usually can tomatoes (stewed, salsa, and sauce), dilly beans, pickled beets, relishes, and apple sauce. I can't seem to get pickles right but may try again this year. How do you get a crispy pickle anyway?! So I don't can a ton of food but enough to feel like I put some food up. I must admit it is fun and rewarding to open a can of food during the year and know it came from our garden. It impresses people too!

It is very important to be very clean when canning. Jars, lids, utensils need to be washed in soapy hot water or in a dish washer and then sterilized by boiling. I boil my jars for 10 minutes and my lids and utensils for 5. Boiling jars etc is the first step of killing any microbes that may be present. Even though most microbes on Earth are very important and beneficial there are a few that are very dangerous. Molds can be dangerous and some molds provide the proper environment for the deadly Clostridium botulinum bacteria, which causes the lethal botulism, to grow. So mold is never a good thing on/in canned food! So just in case those nasty little buggers are present we do all we can to get rid of them. Very clean counter tops, very clean hands, very clean dish cloths, sterile jars and washed, ripe, and freshly picked, top quality produce are musts. Do not use old or bruised produce or produce that is over ripe or rotten. Seems logical but worth mentioning here. All fresh produce contains bacteria that cause the natural process of decomposition. Processing ensures that enough of those bacteria are killed to make the food safe to eat. So sterilizing equipment, using fresh, ripe produce, and processing the food ensures that the food is safe and yummy! A properly processed jar of food has a sealed vacuum and is sealed from outside contamination. It can keep for a year (sometimes more) in a cool, dry place. Now these bacteria can be stopped in their tracks upon canning and freezing but they revive when thawed so you need to treat such food like you would fresh produce.

Something else worth knowing is that while it's fine to reuse canning jars (jars specifically made for canning) you cannot reuse the lids (the flat parts of the tops); those must be new each time you can food. You can reuse the screw top rings though. As a matter of fact, once the jars are processed and cooled I take the screw rings off until I open the jar for use. To be sure that the jars are processed properly you should hear a "ping" sound when the jars are cooling. Another way to tell if the seal is correct is to press on the lids once the jars are cool (next day) . If the lids don't "pop" or spring back than they are sealed properly. If the lids spring back when you press on them they are not properly sealed and need to be reprocessed or eaten right away or stored in the refrigerator and eaten within a few days.

Beans, garlic, and dill seed heads ready for processing

Since food can spoil very quickly in the heat of the summer (bacteria counts can double every 20 minutes on the counter top!) you need to work quickly. The food in the picture above won't be on the counter more than 15-20 minutes. If you can't process the food immediately after you pick it, you should refrigerate the food until ready to process (not more than a day). Something to notice is how I've got my beans divided in the picture above. Beans all the way on the left are perfect dilly bean size. Beans all the way to the right are, what I consider, too large. Beans in the middle are a bit small and so are my favorite to eat fresh. The reason I divide up my beans is so that I use the perfect beans first. Then in case I don't have enough "perfect" beans I pull from my other piles. Usually the small beans go next and those large beans are only if I don't have enough from the other two piles.

Once the beans are trimmed, jars and tops are boiled, and vinegar solution is boiling, the jars can be filled with beans, garlic, dill heads, and vinegar solution. Jars are sealed then boiled and... voila, you've got finished canned jars of delicious dilly beans.

Here's my dilly bean recipe to make 7 pints:
3 lbs of green beans (or wax beans) enough to make 7 pints
In each jar put 1 clove of garlic, fill with beans, 1 dill seed head, and vinegar solution - leave 1/4" head space.
Optional - can add pinch of red pepper flakes
Vinegar solution:
5 cups white vinegar and 5 cups water and 6 TBSP canning salt

Combine vinegar, water, and canning salt in a large sauce pot. Bring to boil and then turn off heat. Pack beans lengthwise into hot sterile jars leaving 1/4" headspace. To each pint, add 1-2 cloves garlic and 1 head of dill. Pour hot vinegar solution into jars leaving 1/4" headspace. Remove air bubbles. Put on lids and screw on caps. Process pints and/or quarts for 10 minutes in hot water bath.

Finished dilly beans!

Just so you have more in depth information on home canning, here is one of many websites that will guide you safely through the canning process step by step: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_home.html and here is a nifty "what went wrong and how do I fix it?" sheet from the University of Maine's County Extension Service: http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/4277.htm I believe every state university has a county extension office and free publications to guide you through this process. So take advantage of their offerings!

Well, that's it for now. I will try to come back and go over the science of composting; I promise!
Enjoy your gardens and do try your hand at putting food by!