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I like to make large batches at a time when I'm canning, but I often have too many jars to put in my canner at one time. I've never been sure what to do with the second set of jars while the first one processes. Should the food (today it was pasta sauce) be kept warm in the pot? I don't want...

It seems early for apples, but mine look really close to being ready. We've picked a couple and eaten them. They're not quite sweet enough, but they're still pretty good. I don't know the varieties - the trees are old and came with the property. One might be Golden Delicious. We're in...

I'll be getting my first goats in a few months, and I'd like to know what their favorites are from the garden. I'm currently planning my garden for this year, and I'll plant extras of whatever they like. They're boer goats. Suggestions?

I'd like to get a bread machine, since we love fresh bread, but we can't always seem to find the time to make it ourselves. I've been doing a little research, and I found that some are called bread machines, and some are called bread makers. What's the difference? Is there a brand that I...

While cleaning out the garden before tilling up the dead squash and zucchini plants, I came across a tray of starter pots that had been left in the garden after we planted tomatoes. The pots had become overgrown with weeds and squash, and I forgot that they were there. Several of the pots had...

Tonight I discovered that one of my pullets has a prolapsed vent. She had an egg caught in the tissue, which took quite a bit of working to free it. Then we tried to push the tissue back in, but she kept pushing it back out. She's now isolated in a dog crate to give her a chance to recover...

We have a shelf in our barn (where the chicken coop is) where we keep a stack of old egg cartons for carrying eggs into the house. Our chickens recently discovered this stack and started knocking them onto the floor, then dragging them into the yard where we later found them mutilated. After...

This might explain why we haven't been getting as many eggs as I think we should. I noticed yesterday that a bunch of my BO 'hens' appear to have saddle feathers! Nobody crows, but they're huge. I think they're about 5 months old, but I no longer trust the age we were told when we bought them...

I've been very disappointed in my egg production for the last few months. Our 15 girls went gangbusters this spring, and we had more eggs than we've ever had. We even made a FRESH EGGS sign for our front yard and earned a few regular customers. Then the coons found us. By the time we took...

Shocker, right? It's been a long, long time since I really looked through the produce department at the grocery store. I grow my own and buy from other farmers when I can. The grocery store is only used to fill in the gaps when necessary. Tonight we walked in the front door to find the...

Does anybody subscribe to Mary Janes Farm Magazine? I received an advertisement in the mail, and I have to admit that I was intrigued by what it said. It's supposed to be specifically for farm girls, which I am. I'm considering sending off for the free trial issue, but I hate giving my name...

I started a new journal when we bought our property just over a year ago. I write whatever is on my mind. Sometimes it's a significant weather event, the latest garden harvest, an attack on our chickens, or an update on a home improvement project. Other times it's a funny story that happened...

We've been composting on a small scale for several years. We've tried a bin made of old pallets, a tumbler made out of a 55 gallon barrel, and a simple pile on the ground. The problem for us is that we have dogs and chickens running around, so open food in the yard causes lots of digging and...

I saw this when it was still green a few days ago, but I thought it was TWO tomatoes growing up against each other. The scale is reading in pounds and ounces.

Our Japanese beetle traps were constantly overflowing, so we replaced the typical plastic container with a tall kitchen bag. This is one day's worth of beetles, and we have a second trap that looks almost identical. The swarms of beetles around the traps are unbelievable. What are you...

A week ago it was fine, and then two days ago I noticed the leaves were all brown. It's been really dry here, so I've been watering a LOT, but this looks more like a disease than a lack of water. What's going on? As a side note - I have 9 other blueberry plants, and one shows a few brown...

We moved into our new house last year, and ever since we've been finding rhubarb EVERYWHERE! There are a couple of obvious garden plots around some remaining grape vines and such, but we find them all over the woods in places that don't seem typical for the previous owners to have had a garden...

I've been around this forum and BYC for several years, but I haven't been active lately. We moved to Peoria, IL last year and bought a 1910 Victorian farmhouse that had been vacant for about 4 years. Needless to say we've had our hands full making the house livable - our bedroom is still in...

I have a bunch of old canning jars that have been in my barn for several years. Many of them have a brown or white film inside, and I'm having a difficult time getting it off. I've run them through the dishwasher, I've scrubbed them, and it's still there. What is it, and how do I remove it?

I read that you're supposed to blanch celery for a couple of weeks before you harvest it to get rid of the bitter flavor. It sounds to me like this simply means you mound dirt up around the stalk. Do I understand this correctly? How much of the plant should be buried? It's my understanding...