Unboxing & Potting Avocado Trees + Canning the MOST Delicious Marinara Sauce!
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FunTranscript
00:00 I like these tomatoes.
00:16 It's yucky.
00:31 I'm going to cut it.
00:51 I'm going to cut it.
01:01 I'm going to cut it.
01:23 Hey guys, how's it going?
01:24 Today we have a few really fun things going on.
01:27 The first involves unboxing a couple of trees that Aaron just bought online and had delivered to us.
01:32 I think he's in the process of moving them to the Hartley at the moment.
01:35 So we wanted to unbox them and maybe pot them up today.
01:38 We're also making marinara sauce to can.
01:41 I've already got it going in the kitchen. I'll talk about that here in a little while.
01:44 It smells amazing in there right now.
01:47 And if we have time, I want to harvest the rest of our onions.
01:50 I don't know if we're going to make it that far, but we'll see.
01:54 Oh my word. That's a big box.
01:59 It shows to lay flat like this.
02:02 Well, maybe I don't know if they might know what they're doing in terms of packaging.
02:10 OK, you ready for this?
02:13 I think so.
02:14 All right, guys. So these trees are from fast growing trees.
02:18 Dot com. I actually never been on their website.
02:20 Like I said, Aaron ordered these.
02:22 I don't even know what varieties you got.
02:24 I don't know anything about the website either.
02:26 So like for all I know, we might be getting dead trees.
02:30 Like they came from North Carolina.
02:32 North Carolina. OK, so here we go.
02:34 It's interesting, yeah, that they wanted them laying down like this as opposed to like standing upright like plants normally do.
02:43 So do we just what do we do here?
02:47 Can we just pull it out? I wonder.
02:50 We're going to work through these staples here.
02:56 I've heard the name fast growing trees dot com before somewhere like along the way.
03:12 OK. So this is a one gallon sized pot, it feels like.
03:28 Tada. It is an avocado tree.
03:32 Do you know what variety? Did you order two varieties?
03:34 Are these the same?
03:36 I'm not sure what they are.
03:37 You know, that doesn't look half bad for coming all the way from what you say, South Carolina?
03:41 North Carolina.
03:44 So the the bottom here, I'm just taking the zip tie off.
03:47 It was zip tied right here.
03:50 I mean, the soil stayed sort of in place.
03:54 At least it's not all over inside the box.
03:59 This is a cold, hardy avocado is all it says.
04:04 Do we have a link so we can put down below to show what you ordered?
04:08 Yeah, I'm going to probably pop these today, but I have really no idea how to take care of them.
04:13 It says cold, hardy, but how cold, hardy is that?
04:16 OK, so we looked it up. And first of all, this looks nothing like the picture on the website.
04:22 I mean, maybe it's the picture of what it will look like one day.
04:25 But the one on the website, it's like real nice and full and multi branched.
04:28 And I think Aaron said that he thought he ordered one that was larger than this, like a three gallon size, probably based on what we paid for it.
04:34 So we'll look into that a little bit more.
04:36 But the cold growing zone, it said zone four through 11 patio or zone eight through 11 outdoors.
04:44 That makes no sense that there's a patio versus outdoors.
04:47 And I didn't really see any any further explanation.
04:49 But I would imagine that I'm not going to treat it like it will survive outside because I just we've never really nobody grows avocados in our area.
04:58 Our neighbor actually has a huge avocado farm in Mexico.
05:00 I should talk to Salvador. Yeah, he probably could help me out big time with this.
05:05 Are you going to keep those in here? Yeah, probably.
05:07 I'll probably pop them in the other greenhouse and then bring them in here.
05:11 I think they might like it. I would.
05:14 OK, now this one, this looks like it's going to be, well, large one, obviously.
05:32 All right, there's the pot right there.
05:41 Oh, this doesn't have any paper wrapping at all.
05:44 Oh, look at this. OK, where are the fans?
05:49 I don't want to get snagged in a fan.
05:53 Oh, it's a tight inside. OK, here we go.
05:59 Oh, my word. Thoughts, Aaron?
06:08 You know, it'll it'll it'll fill out. It'll fluff out a little bit.
06:11 It looks pretty healthy, though. Yeah, especially coming all the way from North Carolina.
06:16 Did it break off at the top or defoliating?
06:20 It's got a crummy looking branch right here. Take that off right away.
06:25 So this is a Hass avocado, which, you know, we buy at the stores.
06:29 And I think it said zone nine through 11 growing zone outdoors for this one.
06:34 So definitely inside. I do think these like a lot of humidity.
06:38 So that's something that we're going to keep in mind.
06:39 In fact, we just started running the AC in here not that long ago, and it still feels kind of humid in here.
06:45 But they might like it better in the plastic greenhouse for a little while until it cools off just a little bit.
06:52 I'm not sure we might have to play around with where we keep them.
06:56 Everything I leave in there, like all of our citrus, they're just bearing fruit like crazy.
07:00 I really like to be successful with these.
07:02 So we might just put them in there and leave them in there for a little while.
07:05 Let them kind of root in and then bring them over here eventually.
07:09 And I think they are fairly fast growers.
07:11 Like I said, I don't know a lot about avocados at all, but they can bear fruit fairly quickly. Right.
07:17 I read somewhere that they can, some can bear the first year and others can take like two to three years to bear.
07:25 Well, this one's already, well, these already have some time on them.
07:28 Yeah. So, you know, definitely wouldn't be this season, but maybe next season once they've rooted in.
07:34 So anyway, that's it for these.
07:37 We'll link them down below and we'll get them potted up here in just a little bit.
07:42 But I need to run in and I think it's time to actually bottle up our marinara that I have going.
07:47 So we'll get that processing while we get all of our supplies ready.
07:50 Kind of like doing things in shifts today.
07:52 Okay. So before we get inside, I kind of want to explain what I've done with the marinara up to this point
07:57 because it's just been sitting on the stovetop simmering for the last couple of hours and it smells amazing.
08:02 So I'm hoping that it processes really well and tastes really, really good.
08:06 I usually make my marinara sauce from scratch.
08:08 Whenever I make spaghetti, I make it from scratch.
08:11 It would be super nice to have some canned sauce kind of ready to go so that on busier days,
08:16 we can still have something that's really tasty and it's a really good way to use up some tomatoes.
08:20 My mom and I canned 34 pints of diced tomatoes yesterday and I did film it.
08:25 And I feel like I should have disclaimered and probably should disclaimer right now that I am not a professional at canning or cooking any of that stuff.
08:32 Typically, when I share something with you, it's either something that's tried and true for us or it's a new recipe.
08:38 So I don't make that like today I'm following a recipe from the Daring Gourmet.
08:41 I just looked up canning marinara recipes on Google and found the one with the highest rating.
08:46 And it looked really tasty, all the herbs that are in it.
08:49 But especially when I'm doing a canning recipe, I make sure to follow that recipe to a T because canning can be tricky.
08:55 And I've done a lot of canning in the past.
08:57 Haven't in the most recent years but in the past, I've done a lot of it.
09:01 So I'm fairly confident but definitely when you're getting into canning,
09:04 I did a lot of recipes like from ball canning, ball canning recipes.
09:09 I don't know if that's what the website is but or you can look at extension offices, websites, things like that.
09:15 And they usually have really good guides on that.
09:17 So let me tell you what I've done.
09:18 I've got the recipe right here.
09:19 So don't forget any of the ingredients.
09:21 I didn't capture the first step on camera but I did sterilize all my jars, the rings, the lids, everything's ready to go on the counter.
09:28 This recipe says it makes six pints.
09:30 So that's what I prepare.
09:31 And then I got a big pot of boiling water going on the stove and I put my tomatoes in it for about 60 or so seconds
09:37 and took them out and put them in a bowl full of cold water.
09:40 Usually, you just leave them in that boiling water until the skin starts to crack.
09:44 That way, the skin slips right off.
09:45 It makes cleaning them really easy.
09:47 And then I cored them.
09:48 I took off any imperfections and I took all the seeds out.
09:51 So it was just kind of the meat of the tomato.
09:54 I put all of the meat of the tomatoes into a big pot and kind of just crushed them up a little bit with a spoon
09:59 and then I added everything else which I'm going to read for you right here.
10:03 First was six cloves of garlic all minced up.
10:06 Oh my gosh, that started to make things smell amazing in the kitchen.
10:10 And then you're supposed to use a half cup of dried or dehydrated minced onion.
10:14 I just used the rest of my bottle that I had.
10:16 I don't think it was quite a half cup but it was close.
10:19 And then a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil, three tablespoons of brown sugar, two tablespoons of sea salt,
10:26 one tablespoon of dark balsamic vinegar, and then one and a half teaspoons each of rosemary, oregano, basil, and thyme.
10:34 It calls for one teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds.
10:36 I left that out because I don't care for that flavor.
10:38 And then half teaspoon each of ground sage and ground black pepper and two bay leaves.
10:44 So that's what has been simmering.
10:46 It's already reduced in size by about an inch and a half, two inches.
10:50 It's starting to look really thick and delicious.
10:53 So what I'm going to do at this point is I'm going to use my immersion blender.
10:56 We're going to blend it all up.
10:57 I'm going to taste it, see if we need to add any seasoning, and after I discard the bay leaves.
11:02 So I'll take those out first.
11:03 And then we'll start packing our jars full.
11:05 We'll leave a half inch of head space and then we're going to put them in a water bath canner for 35 minutes.
11:09 That's how long they need to process.
11:11 I'm also adding a quarter teaspoon of citric acid to the bottom of each pint jar.
11:17 It's either that or one tablespoon of lemon juice.
11:20 Let's go see it.
11:21 It does look like it has reduced by about two or so inches.
11:25 It smells so, so good.
11:28 So we need to find these bay leaves and fish these out before we blend it.
11:32 There are two in here.
11:33 Oh, there it is.
11:34 Yay, that was easy.
11:35 Here's my immersion blender.
11:36 I'm going to move it over here so that my cord can reach.
11:44 Here we go.
12:01 Time for a taste.
12:07 Mmm.
12:09 Oh, that's yummy.
12:10 I don't think I need to add anything to that.
12:12 Okay, so now what we need to do is add a quarter teaspoon of citric acid to each one of our jars.
12:18 I don't know.
12:19 I don't know if that's going to do six jars.
12:21 I'm going to start with five to begin with and then we'll see what it looks like.
12:24 A quarter teaspoon.
12:34 Funnel makes it super handy so you keep your jars clean.
12:38 You can probably just pour this in.
12:48 I'm going to take a clean towel and just wipe off maybe anything that got on the sides or on the top of the rim.
12:57 Then we'll put our lid and our ring over the top.
13:01 Oh, that's hot already.
13:03 Oh, that's beautiful.
13:05 Okay, let's keep going.
13:08 Okay.
13:18 Okay.
13:46 We ended up with seven pints of this delicious sauce.
13:49 I'm so excited about how wonderful it tastes.
13:52 I'm just waiting for the canner to heat up all the way.
13:54 We're almost there.
13:57 Almost boiling.
13:58 But once we put the jars in, we will let them sit in here boiling for 35 minutes.
14:04 Then we'll turn the heat off and let them sit in the water for five more minutes before we take them out.
14:09 But we had just enough sauce left.
14:13 I'm going to do that right there to cook up one plate of pasta so we can try it out.
14:24 That's perfect.
14:27 Six minutes.
14:28 Six minutes for this pasta.
14:30 Okay.
14:58 Okay.
15:22 Oh, my goodness.
15:45 Does that not look amazing?
15:48 We're going to try it now.
15:49 Okay, I've got to get a dainty looking bite here.
15:55 Oh, my goodness, you guys.
15:57 Now, the only thing, the flavor is awesome, the texture is awesome.
16:01 It's just a matter of whether or not it cans really well.
16:05 So they're in there processing right now.
16:08 Let's see how long we have left.
16:09 We've got 30 minutes left.
16:11 So we'll see.
16:12 We'll pull them out in 30 minutes.
16:13 But I'm going to eat this.
16:14 I'll probably go share a little bit of it too.
16:16 And then we'll go pot up the avocados while we wait.
16:20 Okay.
16:35 Sorry.
16:49 Sorry, tree.
16:52 Here, we'll put you right here.
16:53 Don't fall down.
17:00 All right, got them out here to the greenhouse.
17:02 They're looking so sad.
17:03 I did water them right when we got them out of the box.
17:06 Hopefully, they perk back up.
17:07 It's pretty hot today.
17:08 It's like 98.
17:09 And that's outside.
17:10 I'm not sure what it is in here.
17:12 I could find out.
17:13 Oh, 109, you know.
17:14 But I've got a couple of pots here that I think are going to work out well.
17:17 Now, usually, when you're repotting something, you don't want to pot it up into too big of a container versus the one that it's currently in.
17:24 But this avocado tree is so tall, and it's going to be so top heavy if I don't put it in something big.
17:30 And the scale will look wrong.
17:31 So I'm just going to put it in this big terracotta pot right there.
17:34 We're just going to go for it.
17:35 This is the soil we're using right here.
17:38 And then we've got -- this is -- it looks like a terracotta pot, but this is from Crescent Garden.
17:42 It's the rolled rim pot, and it's lightweight.
17:44 I think that's the perfect size for this one right here.
17:46 And look at that zinnia just blooming its head off right there, just growing in the gravel.
17:51 We're actually going to have to run back in to pull those jars out.
17:53 This took me a little bit longer to gather than I thought it was going to.
17:56 But we've also got this squash plant that volunteered in here.
17:59 I don't even know what it is exactly.
18:01 I need to give it a little bit of water.
18:04 It's got these little round green squash.
18:07 Anybody know?
18:09 Little, like, green speckles on it.
18:11 That's where it's rooted in.
18:12 Bethany actually made a little bucket.
18:15 And that bucket has a little hole in the plastic bag that lines up with the hole in the plant container that it's sitting in.
18:21 So we fill it up, and then it gives a slow drip to the roots.
18:25 I just haven't had a chance yet to fill it up today.
18:27 It's amazing to me, though, that a plant would root itself in in here.
18:30 I mean, this is gravel landscape fabric underneath the gravel.
18:33 There's no -- I mean, I'm sure soil over the years has made its way below the gravel with all the stuff that we do in here.
18:39 But to grow this huge in here in those conditions, that's pretty amazing.
18:45 This plant is just massive.
18:48 Here we go.
18:49 And there's my timer.
18:50 Let's go get the jars out.
18:55 Forgot, we just turn the heat off, and then we'll let them sit for five minutes.
18:58 Then we'll take them out.
18:59 Okay, it's been five minutes.
19:02 Every single jar sealed.
19:05 And they look so great.
19:06 Like, there's no separation.
19:07 Sometimes, you know, you get a little liquid separating from the solids.
19:11 And -- oh, peek.
19:15 So long as the flavor is every bit as good as it was fresh, this is a winner of a recipe.
19:23 I love it.
19:25 [Rustling]
19:49 [Rustling]
20:04 [Rustling]
20:32 [Rustling]
20:41 Just cooling the soil down because the soil is still really hot, too.
20:45 [Rustling]
20:53 [Rustling]
21:06 [Rustling]
21:22 [Rustling]
21:33 [Rustling]
21:43 [Rustling]
21:53 [Rustling]
22:07 One way to do it.
22:09 [Rustling]
22:22 [Rustling]
22:38 [Rustling]
22:46 Well, they don't look amazing.
22:48 But they look a little bit better now that they're in containers.
22:51 They've been well watered.
22:53 Biotone starter fertilizer added into the soil so they have nutrients to utilize.
22:57 And it is going to start cooling off starting this evening.
23:00 I think we might even get a little bit of wind.
23:02 So today's 98.
23:04 Tomorrow's 91.
23:05 And then we're down into the low 80s.
23:06 It looks for the rest of the 10-day.
23:08 So it won't get near as hot in here.
23:10 But it's definitely more humid in here than any other area in our house,
23:14 in or out of our house, any of our outbuildings.
23:17 So I think they might be the happiest because of that.
23:19 I was reading up a little bit about them.
23:22 So they like the humidity.
23:24 They also like a soil that's neutral to slightly acidic.
23:27 So that's something that I'll have to consider because even our --
23:30 we're so high pH here that even our water is.
23:33 We'll probably have to add some soil acidifier in to keep them on that more acidic side.
23:37 And I think they'll like the soil that we put them in to begin with anyway.
23:41 And they're in containers that drain well.
23:43 It did say that they really liked that.
23:45 So anyway, we'll see how this experiment goes.
23:47 Any of you out there who grow avocados who might have some wisdom to share with me on this,
23:51 I would love to hear it.
23:53 I'd love to have success with these.
23:54 And, you guys, we are running out of time today.
23:56 I think the only thing that I'm going to be able to get done before I need to run in and start dinner
24:00 is moving the onions that are back behind the barn that I put back the last time we harvested.
24:04 I realized I've got to get that all cleared off and get those onions in storage
24:07 before I can go out and harvest the rest of them so that I have a place to put the ones that I harvest.
24:12 So let's go tackle that at least.
24:14 We'll get that done, and then we'll be ready to go maybe tomorrow.
24:16 We'll harvest the onions.
24:18 This right here is what I'm talking about.
24:19 So not very many of them.
24:20 Most of them have dried down sufficiently.
24:22 These are the rest of the candies that we harvested last.
24:26 And then we've got--I have to remember--these might be Newbergs.
24:34 These are the Yellow Sweet Spanish, and then these are Walla Walla.
24:37 So these haven't dried all the way down, but they are so close.
24:40 I'm going to go ahead and just prep these and get them in storage so we have space.
24:44 And basically what that means is just cutting the stalks off--and you can leave a little bit on top of the onion--
24:49 and cutting the roots off.
24:50 I don't really clean up other than that.
24:52 I mean, something that maybe looks like this, I might take that off.
24:56 But you want to be careful and leave as much of that papery skin on as you can
24:59 because that will help with storage life.
25:01 And I'm just going to put them in this bucket to transfer them to the root cellar
25:04 where we've already got bins started with these onions.
25:07 [plastic crinkling]
25:11 [plastic crinkling]
25:14 [sandpaper scraping]
25:18 [scraping]
25:22 [scraping]
25:25 [scraping]
25:33 [scraping]
25:38 [scraping]
25:42 [sandpaper scraping]
25:49 [sandpaper scraping]
25:52 [scraping]
25:59 And you guys, that is going to do it for our projects today.
26:08 I'm just taking a minute or two at the pond.
26:11 My feet are in the water. It feels so good feeding the fish.
26:15 It's just such a great way to end any project or any day.
26:18 And I will link where Erin ordered those trees
26:21 and will also link the recipe for the marinara we made today.
26:25 I'm happy with that marinara. Oh my goodness.
26:28 Such a tasty recipe and the jury's still out on those avocado trees.
26:32 We'll see how that experiment goes.
26:34 But thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today and watching this video.
26:37 I hope you enjoyed it and we will see you in the next one. Bye.