Living Free in Tennessee - Nicole Sauce

One of the best ways to eat well on a budget is to buy produce when it is in season and preserve it for the whole winter. Last week, I spent $20 on 1/2 bushel of beets, an additional $5-10 on other ingredients, and ended up with fourteen jars of pickled beets. Had I preserved all the beets, I would have had 21 jars, making the cost to me a little over $1 per jar. Go try to get such a premium product for that price at the grocer. You can get crummy ones in the $1.30 range, but premium ones are $3-6 per jar. This episode of Living Free in Tennessee walks through the process of water bath canning and shares my personal pickled beet recipe along with the recipe I inherited from my Great Aunt Helen.

What we are eating this week Berries! Elderflower Fritters: a recipe - do not use olive oil Items from the root cellar: Spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes Still getting lettuce galore but that is about to change What we are preserving this week - and how Peppermint Bee balm - finally about to bloom Sour Cherry Jam Blackberry leaves Pickled Beets - Recipe coming soon! Garden/pest update The flea beetle Squash bugs Does the duct tape trick really work on squash bug eggs? Neem oil or Dawn About the Root Cellar and Canned Food Storage Final song: Every Way written by Nicole Sauce, performed by Sauce

What we are eating this week Coleslaw recipe & freshness strategy 2 TBSP mayonnaise, 2 TBSP vinegar, 1/3 cup milk, 1 TBSP honey, 1 tsp freshly ground pepper, 1 tsp salt. Shake like mad! Pour over your cut up cabbage, carrots and onions. Chard, radishes, spinach, lettuces, canned corn (must. finish. last. year's. corn.), strawberries, sweet potatoes Poke weed w/ video on how to prepare it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3EnGpPUWhs Sassafras root - video on how to harvest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1scAAetl7EE What we are preserving this week - and how Peppermint Bee balm Strawberries Blackberry leaves Time to test your pressure canner gauge - a not from the entension office --https://extension.tennessee.edu/WebPacket/Pages/NYCU-2016-05-Canning.aspx How the Holler Homestead started An interview with Michelle Shelley of Full Circle Heritage Farms From Michelle: "You might want to change the title to "woman running a farm into the ground, into a wall, through a gate (farm truck with no brakes), or just a woman breaking stuff- that's what I'm really running! The mineral feeder she made: The manure spreader: Holler Update The ducks got a pool! Tomatoes looking great and a shout out to Nick Ferguson of Homegrown Liberty The importance of relationships: Truck in the shop Outro: Grandpa's Song, by Sauce

Nine years ago, we started on an adventure in the country. What began as a weekend getaway quickly changed into a small homestead with chickens, gardens, laughter, neighbors, and sometimes the opposite of laughter. The Holler Homestead is known in our area for our home roasted coffee (it takes less time to roast your own than drive to the store), elephant garlic, stone ground flour and hand rolled oats. We also help people learn how to preserve food and are keenly interested in self sufficient living. In this first episode we cover: 1) What we're eating this week from the land 2) The independence fund 3) Managing an overwhelming list of homestead duties 4) Tea 5) My new daily planner (read about that here: http://nicolesauce.com/2016/03/07/the-only-day-planner-that-has-ever-worked/) Let me know what you want to hear about next... ~Nicole Sauce