Sugar Beets.

The time has come to begin clearing out my garden.  This is a great lesson for the girls in beginning homemaking.  Thursday Lydia helped me harvest the beets.  We kept the taproot attached and then cut the stems to about two inches.  We brought them into the house where Kara washed the beets and placed them in the blancher.

We then boiled the beets until the skins were able to be rubbed off.  Both Kara and Lydia helped me skin the beets and then I chopped them and placed them in the pint jars. Adding a 1/2 tsp of canning salt to each pint then sealing it with a lid and ring.  This is all the girls were able to help me with.  I am always a bit nervous about using the pressure canner, so no kids are allowed in the kitchen when the pressure canner is building pressure up.

This was the first time I've used the pressure canner this year, so I had to do a quick review of what I was doing (by calling my very experienced gardening/coupon friend!).  I processed the pints for 30 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure (or 11 pounds on my canner since the extension office told me my gauge is off by one pound when pressure gets to 10 pounds).

After all the beets were processed we have 20 lovely pints of beets.  Now, hopefully the kids will enjoy eating them :)  I don't think I've ever fed them beets before - Total cost $1.40 for 20 canning lids (I already had the jars and rings, and the lids were purchased using $1 off coupons for .$69 each).

Unplanned learning

Do you know how many opportunities we have each day to teach and instruct our children?  Countless!  Yesterday I had a great opportunity for science learning.  Outside weeding the garden we found a number of insects that we had never seen before.

We identified the typical army cutworm, and a Golden Tortoise Beetle. Other insects we identified was a pupa (red in color) probably from an army cutworm.  We also found a yellow grasshopper, and an orange beetle with a black spot I was unable to identify.

We saw a long black milipeade run across the dirt and burrow itself, as well as the common house fly, cicada shells, and many others.

This impromptu science lesson became a lot of fun for the kids and for myself as they raced around the yard with baby food jars trying to catch and collect as many different types of insects they can.  I guess it's a good thing their Uncle Tim has to create a bug collection this year as we will probably have plenty to offer him.

What types of bugs have you discovered in your yard lately?