How We’re Saving Veggies for Winter | NO CANNING

I've noticed lately I've been letting Gideon just get up and get going on his own.

I'm going.

But he hasn't been going with me. You are? Well, where are your shoes? There's one. No match. So I'm missing Ben with me, so I got him a— you feel good? I got you an apple and a cheese. You feel better? Yeah. All right, well, let's— you gotta help me though. I'm gonna find your shoes, but you gotta help me. Okay. Or do you just want to go barefoot?

I don't want to go barefoot. I want to wear shoes.

Okay. Hey, you want to wear these?

Let's find the other ones.

It's inside. I'll go get you some socks. Hopefully he can still fit these. Hey, I like your swimsuit. Ready to party. I see you got one sock. Yeah. But you got it on all kinds of wrong. Flip it around. Flip it around. You tried. You tried. Basically, I just want to get going. And I want you to go with me. Thank you for swapping.

Oh, you're welcome.

Ow! Do they still fit?

They do fit, but I can't get them on.

Ow! Oh, let's open this. Oh yeah. Fit?

Yep.

Okay. Hey, why are you taking your shoes off?

To go get Ninja stuff.

We just got his shoes on. He's gonna go get some toys. Um, now the game is Hopefully I didn't get him ready just so he can go across the street and play with his friend Azariah. Hopefully we can keep him with us. Lily, we're gonna clip your chicken wings. There's one chick out. You want to try to catch it? Oh good, good job. So these gals have been jumping on the banister right here, and then eventually they're gonna end up in Mama's garden, so we're gonna have to clip their wings. We've been clipping their wings, but they're growing, so they keep growing them back. All right, let's, let's do all these guys. You might be able to do it that way. We might have to reach in from the top. Oh no, we can't let them go! Here, Jonah, come. We'll herd it into the corner. Lily, let's herd this gal into the corner. Oh, are you serious? Wow, look how much these grow back. It doesn't hurt them, it's like clipping fingernails. All right, I think we've got our system. I think we're just gonna grab them from the top. They spotted him. Gideon's trying to leave me already. Gideon, do not knock on that door. He's Azariah's alarm clock, but We don't want to be waking up Ryan. You're not going to play with him yet, okay? Okay. Is these all your— what's all this?

Okay.

All right, well, now we ready. You gotta maybe pick one or two to take with you, okay?

Okay.

All right, they let everybody else out. Jenna, will you water our plants this morning? I've got that on the shower setting. It's going to be a lot quicker. Maybe go a little easier.

You can do it.

Like, look, now you can do it. He is not a gardener. Just do like that, nice and easy.

I'm a meat farmer.

And just soak it. Okay, you want to do it, Josiah? And then he and I are going to move the luchadors and the ducks. See that? Our luchadors are knocking off their mineral. At some point we got to fortify it. Frame it out. This is where we're gonna actually move the duck pen. We haven't had the duck shelter down here yet. And we have a very special visitor this whole week, a friend of the family, Benjamin Meeks, aka the Garden Guy. Garden Guy, you're still the Garden Guy on Instagram? I'm still a Garden Guy. So how'd you get that handle, man? How'd you get that handle? That's got to be a— I started back whenever I think they were like one year into Instagram, and I was like I'm the garden guy. Let's do this. I wasn't even in the garden yet, but I was— I knew I loved gardening. Okay, good. All right, well, we're gonna— Jonah, what do you think? I was thinking maybe we would start moving these ducks every day, but then I thought they might not gain proper— they might not gain weight properly. What do you think? Does that make sense to you?

Well, we can just move them and do like—

in that case, I still think we would just move them once a day inside of this and then move this every 3 days, which means they haven't been here yet, so we'll move them here, and then tomorrow we'll move this whole thing. Thank you, my man. Yeah, see, there's plenty of stuff they were eating out here this morning. Get in, let's go! Come on, Josiah, we're going on Sally. I can and I can't believe what's happening here. You took your shoes off, I think, for the what, second, third time? You just want to go barefoot?

No, I'm gonna have socks on.

These pigs try it every time. If it's not on, they will get out. They don't— their carrots are apparently not their favorite. We've got the fat hens hooked up. It's a big move. We got to go down and then back up. Free the birds! The cows were here, they're going right there. You can see the difference. Oh look, there's some clover! There was not clover here, guys. We're gonna put our nets up right here and then bring the sheep over. Hey, Mr. Brown, you took your shoes off again and now you're walking around in socks and you're on top of Sally. Will you please get down? We got our net set up. It's a little bit of a move today. They're up here, but no worries. We have the fence for the— that the chickens are in. We have this single strand line up. I think they'll— it'll be no problem. You guys are always eager to move. We got to get him going the right way, Josiah. Don't let him get over to his mama. Hey, hey, hey! Oh shoot, shoot, wasn't good enough for him. Can you come open me up right here, Josiah, quick? All right, Josiah's opened us up down there. Let's see if we can't get him to go in there. There we go. You see it, you see it. Come on, you see it, you see it. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep! Can you haul the sheep, Shaw Jona? Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. Bring the sheep shawl when you come back. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep. They go in so nicely. Look at what that cat did. There's a cat on the roof. Somebody has left the bowl out.

Yeah, you leave it on the thing and then, and the cats knock it off and then they jump off.

Hey, it's handy having a tall guy. Can you really reach that? Yeah. Oh my gosh. 6'3" comes in handy someday. Look, I'm so far away from that. Yeah, that's nice. He didn't even stretch. Yeah, okay, you can almost clean the gutters, clean up around the house.

Oh, I'm just—

good morning, good morning. Looks like this didn't get all watered real good. Will you do that?

No, I am, and I'm, um, actually putting in more.

I had a child do it, but Oh well, more lettuce. Okay, where it's— and we're planting today. You're gonna get some folks on seed starting. Okay, and I see that you're just planting new seeds where it didn't germinate.

Correct. That's smart, but a different variety.

Nice.

I don't know what happened with that.

That's really the only thing in here that is dismal. Everything else made it. Gideon! Honestly, I don't want this to be my job, but it is my job. Number one job: keep the— keep everyone near, keep everyone by. Gideon! Gideon! Exciting, but I gotta milk. If anybody sees Gideon, let me know. All right, y'all getting this soil blocker ready? Yep. All right, gonna go to town. I just got done milking. Just so I got the cow out, clean the stanchion. How's it going over here, my man?

Okay.

How many more you got?

2, 3.

That's it? Start making breakfast, or do you guys need help down here? Um, I guess you can make breakfast because it seemed like you got it under control.

Yeah, they're, they're just gonna make 3 more trays. Okay, and then I'll seed it, which this packet of seeds didn't seem like it had enough seeds in it.

Our experiment— this is just soil blocks. This is soil blocks, 10% biochar, 10% worm casting. And then this is soil blocks with just 10% biochar. So far it actually looks like the one with nothing is doing a little bit better, but it's kind of—

it's kind of noticeable as they get larger. Uh, interesting to see.

They need more nutrients.

Nutrients make a difference.

Wait, there he is! Where have you been this entire time?

And Azariah's in the bushes next to Ezra's house, and then he went and played with Ezra.

All right, will you come make breakfast with me? Me, you, and Lily? Well, then stay here with Mom. Okay, on today's episode of Burn It Up Cooking Show, we have got green beans! Green beans! Lily's in charge because I actually don't know how to cook green beans. So what are you gonna first do? Well, we first washed them, but we still have bugs on them, I see. That's our organic stamp. That's our safety stamp of approval. Safe for bugs, safe for us. So you're cutting that up to bite-sized pieces?

It's easier when you cut it up.

And I think we'll rinse it again once— we'll wash it again once you cut it. Okay. How's it going, Lily? Good. Coming along, about halfway done. So we don't have a pastry cutter. We gotta cut in some butter. I tried cutting it with knives, that's no fun. Cheese grater. The butter's cold, it works. I'll spread it in this, the flour. I take a fork and further break it down. It's fine, it's a lot easier than cutting it up with a knife. You got them all?

Yeah.

Now what?

I'm just finishing up.

Oh no, what do we do now? What do we do to cook them? Tell them what you did here, Lily.

I put them in the pot with it into water and then I turned it on in between 8 and 6.

All right.

And then I stir it every now and then.

Okay, nice. Keep the lid on it till they're soft, right?

Yeah.

We've got green beans. Ben and Jenna and Rebecca harvested these.

These ones came from that Okay, right, these ones. So let's eat those fresh and let's freeze these.

Okay, nice. Lily is done, eggs are getting done. Bird, you did so good on these. She just cooked them till they were soft enough, we strained it, and then, uh, what'd you do? Put Copious amounts of butter and salt. This is what it's about right here, working hard and then eating hard.

I ate my green beans.

You did? How were the green beans? Were the green beans a win?

Yeah.

Look at them just standing in it. With the rain we've been having lately, this is an access. They can come back here to get their water and they can go out there into their pasture, but they just stand in it, folks. And that's not mud, that's manure. I don't like it. It gets on their hooves, it gets on their teeth. And, and, uh, Phyllis is about to have a calf, so we're going to start putting their waters in their paddocks and always giving them access to forest, and they don't have to come here for their shade. So I'm going to look here and see if I can't find a straight line. I'm thinking if we go straight up through here when they're in that pasture we can bring them to this forest, and when they're over there in that pasture, they can come to this forest. I'm thinking we might actually split this forest in two. Both sides can get nice shade here. I'm thinking right through here, but let's walk up there and let's see what we're looking at up there. Okay, I'm coming out of the woods right here. I think we should— it's, it's a nice straight line. I can see the perimeter fence right through there. So I think that's it. All right, Jonah's gonna be on the string trimmer, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be on the chainsaw, Ben's on the loppers. We only got about, what, a little over an hour. We've got to go— so much to do today. We're gonna preserve those beans, and Rebecca thinks it might take about 2 hours. That's looking good, took no time. We hit it with the machines and then put up our line. It's coming down there nicely. This is so much better. This feels so much better, guys. I don't think I would wish this upon you, but I wish you could smell it. And if you have a bad smell, you have mismanagement. There's a bad smell, something needs to be changing. See, she's got— she's been standing in the mud. Look at this girl. Are you about to explode your udder? It looks like it's going to explode. She's gonna have a calf any day. I don't want to have a calf in that mud, that manure. Probably the reason I've been prolonging doing this is because now we have to move our— this one different— we have to move our water with them. Well, we have to move our minerals with them too. We're gonna put this right here. This is your new spot, guys. Tomorrow we'll open up that paddock. They can go up there, they'll backtrack to here, and then after that the water gets moved over here. I like it. Here it comes. That's so right. They're over here in the shade. There's no muck, there's no manure, there's no smell here. It's harder work, but it's worth it. Hey, we just got in from moving the cows. We just got done just in time. Rebecca's already started. She's cleaned the beans. We're heating them up for 3 minutes and then we ice them and then we dry them. So you call it blanching? Boils for 3 minutes. We're gonna freeze these beans, correct? All right. People be asking us about canning sometimes. We don't know anything about canning. We personally are not big fans of canning. Uh, we freeze.

There's nothing wrong with it if you like it though. I'm not condemning anything for you.

We'll pull them for all you canners out there. We're just not it. We like fresh greens all winter long. We're going to do that this year with our winter harvest gardens. We're going to freeze some green beans. We freeze our meat and can eat it all year round.

I mean, you can can all of this. Yeah, we just choose not to.

Is it because we love the grid?

No, it's because I don't love canning.

We don't love canning.

I'm— there's nothing wrong with it.

She keeps saying that because they're passionate canners out there. We don't want to hurt your feelings.

I want— they have my full support.

You have our full support. Uh, but, um, we are on the grid and, uh, we like, we like freezing, and it's a good thing.

I've had— I, I should say this— I've had bad experiences with mushy beans after canning them. Yeah, I have canned in the past. I've canned green beans in the past.

It's kind of a scary process.

It's not that, it's not that. I'm not afraid of the process. I just—

scared.

It's a lot. This just feels easier for me, for me, for my system.

It's okay to be you, Becky. You be you, Becky. Be okay.

Yeah, I can or can't, I don't care.

Just don't make us do it. 20 seconds on this. Oh, this is— that's falling in there. Hey, this feels kind of like the Burn It Up cooking show with all that steam.

Yep, burning it up, trying to get all the water out of it and put it in here.

I put that one in. All right, we got all this done. It's drying here till after supper. A little bit of bacon, roasted roasted chicken. Grandma making the beans for tonight. Rebecca's making Darcy dressing for the, for the carrots and cucumbers, all from the land. Then you're gonna eat really good this week, I know that. Oh man, I'm chomping them up. Good stuff. Boom! Look at that chicken. This is all from the farm, minus the sweet potatoes. We've got green beans, we got carrots, cucumber. I've got a plate of chicken and bacon. I like a little bacon with my chicken, add a little fat. How is it, Lily? Well, you got to put down the magazine and try it first. Are you just conditioned to say that?

Oh, it's delicious!

I've got the bacon here, you can have a piece. You don't think it's too Short? Okay, so we run it through that. Look at what— look how it turns out. It looks beautiful. Like, that's exciting to me.

Yes.

Let me see.

Back up, kitty. And it's hot.

Mom, can I do something? Can I put it down and stuff?

Hold on one second.

And this is, this is one meal plus maybe a little bit of leftovers for the next day.

Wait, no, there's— why is it so tight on them?

And there's more, more where that came from. That's satisfying.