The last days of summer have led to a flurry of activity here at our site. Fall seeds and plants have been sown and planted and seeds saved for next year. Summer crops in the gardens have been cleared out and our group members have been participating in multiple food preservation workshops based upon interest, learning effective ways to preserve the summer bounty for the months ahead using a method that works est for them.

This year we offered workshops methods of food preservation. Small batch fermentation had a surprisingly good turnout with members getting a kit consisting of a mason jar, glass weight, burp lid, canning salt, careful instructions and several tested recipes. Each participant went home with a jar of Tommy Toe tomatoes that they prepared at the workshop, which has led to trying out other vegetables using small batch fermentation methods.

The Pressure Canning/Water Bath Workshop had participants actually pressure canning green beans with each individual going through all the steps themselves while discussing the importance of and methods for each step. Each participant went home with canning supplies, websites for tested recipes and a website for replacing their canner parts.

Dehydrating led to adventures well beyond the ordinary shuck beans (although there was a plethora of those) and dried apples. We have explored dried herbs, tomato powder, dried zucchini for flour and peach skins for flavoring to add to smoothies and baking. We have even dried greens to add to our smoothies! These participants went home with instructions and supplies for dehydrating foods from their garden.

Each workshop had healthy heart cooking/recipes for using foods from each food preservation method and a seed saving session with a different kind of seed featured each time. Our workshops were very informal, completely hands on and a lot of fun. They were designed to be small groups divided up by interest but several of the participants attended each one. Everyone said they learned something new, even the experienced caners, demonstrating that there is an interest and a need for the basics and beyond. We are in the process of suggesting things that they would like to learn together next season that goes beyond what they learned this year.

Some of our garden group lived in the path of the floods of the last several years and had lost most of their food stores and saved seeds in the flooding. as reported by one of our members, “This has been “a godsend” for us to be able to start to rebuild our seed libraries and begin to replace all the cans that we lost.” One lady said that she lost around nine hundred cans from her cellar alone. This sounds like a lot, but it really is not for a family in this area. our ladies typically canned all that the garden would produce because yields might not be as good next year and there is no sense wasting it.

This year has definitely been a success and has kept us on our toes. Our group decided during the course of the workshops that we need a social media group page where our growing tips, recipes, gardening and food preservation instructions, pictures, and websites can all be stored, put into categories and easily accessed by present and future gardening club participants. There was much talk around the small groups: how well the organic methods had worked this year, things they were looking forward to trying next year and in the garden.