I have actually been researching foods and home canning foods. Anything processed is bad for my acid reflux. I should really only eat fresh produce and meats. We all know how hard that is. Living in a small town with one grocery store and a small Walmart with only limited foods, means high prices in the grocery store.
I have definitely decided that I need to home can foods to eat more healthily. That means either growing a garden next spring and/or buying at the local farmer's market or local orchards. Unfortunately, the ground here is not conducive to growing anything. I live on top of a ridge. Very little soil on top of solid rock.
We made a raised bed a couple of years ago to try growing a few things.
At first, everything was eaten as soon as it popped out of the ground. We figured out a groundhog was the culprit. So we added an electric fence. That worked to keep out varmint, but we figured out we couldn't keep the ground moist. The ground will not hold water. We tried two years and decided to give up.
To get a feel for canning, I have canned some french onion soup and various dried beans. I found that I actually enjoy it.
So, I have spent the past couple of weeks researching gardening, canning, and food storage. So much information is available.
This is how the skies will be looking for the next few days around here. Rain is in the future.
Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting.
We aren't able to have a garden, either. The soil is quite sandy, which isn't the biggest problem. There are too many big trees, throwing too much shade. Great for a relaxing back yard, but not good for a vegetable garden. What we did instead, was visit local growers and markets and bought the produce from them, fresh and healthy. A lot of them are listed on the internet these days. If we were younger, we probably would have investigated some pick your own places, too. This website has a lot of good information on it. http://www.pickyourown.org/
ReplyDeleteour ground is quite hard and rocky also - we too live on top of a ridge. Raised beds are the only way to go. I have not had a lot of nibbles going on but I mainly just grow tomatoes and a few other things not a large garden - my sister in law though has a huge garden and she has a 6 foot high wire fence all the way around the garden with one side cut as a door that gets wired shut. She has had problems with critters trying to dig underneath though but then puts rocks in those places - she has very good luck with her garden.
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