Best Places To Store Canned Goods
Before we all get too heavily invested in canning wonderful goodies this season, we should first consider where we’ll store the foods that we preserve. If you are only going to preserve a couple items, perhaps this isn’t a big question for you. You can just store them with your other store-bought canned and dried goods. However, if you’d like to get more heavily involved with canning, you probably should consider storage beforehand.
Lucius Styles Ball – Inventor
I bet that, in his wildest dreams, Lucius S. Ball, father of the Ball brothers, never thought that he’d be featured in a museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Yet he is.
What Color Is It?
Everyone is familiar with Ball blue jars and with the company’s clear jars. Many have seen green, amber, sun-colored amethyst, and swirled Ball jars. Very few people know, however, that there was once a white Ball jar and even fewer people have seen or own one.
DIY Project: Self-watering Planters from Reused Materials
Are you ready for spring? Jump start the season with this do-it-yourself gardening idea. This project uses reused soda bottles and household materials to create beautiful, self-watering planters. They are economical, decorative, eco-friendly, and fun to make! Use them to grow herbs, display ornamental houseplants, or beautify your patio. The self-watering system allows you to tend to them less frequently, and eliminates the need for a tray to catch drainage. What could be easier?“
Is your canned food still decent?
One of the main concerns about canning is the safety of the food. Will it have mold? Bacteria? How will I know? The concern is understandable, but if you follow instructions, use clean surfaces, and use fresh foods, then the risks are minimal.
Alvah L. Bingham
The Ball brothers knew ability when they saw it, and quite often the ability they recognized was in their own family. One such talent was Alvah Bingham, inventor, designer and holder of at least seven U.S. patents, including four for glassmaking machines. Alvah was first cousin to the brothers. He was the son of Lorenzo Bingham, Maria Bingham Ball’s brother.
A Farm Boy from Fairview Succeeds
“You can take the lad out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the man,” said the man who loved art, design, movies, dogs, palomino horses, sheep, and rich black soil. W. Edwin Fager was born in 1897 near Fairview, a very small town in Randolph County, Indiana, but spent most of his life working in Chicago or spending time at his farm near Michigan City.
Fake a Topiary!
Topiaries are great pieces of living garden art that can add form and structure to your garden. You might think topiaries are only made by clipping shrubs into various shapes. While that is one way to make a topiary, you can also fake one by training a vine, like English ivy, to grow on a frame. It’s easier, quicker, and more affordable.
The Muncie-made forerunner of the “Vegematic”
Many of you will remember the Vegematic, made by Ronco and heavily advertised on TV. The promise was that “It slices, dices, chops and peels, makes thousands of julienne fries in seconds!” Well, to show that there is nothing new under the sun, Muncie had its own version of a similar kitchen specialty back in the early 1920s.
Quick Tips for Selecting a Tree Contractor
A common question I get from readers, especially after writing about trees, is if I can recommend a tree professional. I don’t mind telling people whom Minnetrista uses, but I like to first mention some important tips that should be considered when choosing a tree contractor. Check them out below!
Have you become a pro at canning? Get started with a different food preservation technique!
Have you become a pro at canning and are now looking into other methods of food preservation as options? Did you never think canning was for you, but would like to get into food preservation somehow? Well, perhaps I’ve got just the thing for you! Dehydrating is a great method of food preservation that results in delicious foods.
Santa Claus Photo
How could such a great, happy photograph come from a morgue? It can when it’s part of a collection of eighty boxes of archival material donated to Minnetrista in 2004 from Ball Memorial Hospital—now IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. Hundreds of photographs, brochures, annual reports, and other papers documenting the hospital from its beginnings in the 1920s had been squirreled away in the unused morgue in the older building.
The British are Coppicing, and You Can Too
Coppicing, pollarding, pleach, fedge, and cordon. All of these are strange and intriguing botanical terms that I’ve encountered on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website. What do they mean? Well, I’ll leave it to you to look up the last four. I’m just going to tell you about the first—coppicing.
Oakhurst Becomes Winter Wonderland
In nineteen years, it has grown from a small, but magical, holiday event held in the gardens at Oakhurst to a much-anticipated event spread throughout Minnetrista’s campus. Planning for the first Enchanted Gardens: A Luminaria Walk at Oakhurst Gardens began right after the George A. Ball home and Oakhurst Gardens opened to the public in May 1995. In a brainstorming session, the idea of lining the garden paths with luminarias was mentioned, and the ideas snowballed from there. Speaking of snow, that first event had it—not too much, just a light dusting.
Meeks Furniture “Comes Home” Part Two
Last month I shared the story of my trip to Columbia, Missouri, to meet Louesa Danks and see her collection of Meeks furniture. Several years after this visit, Louesa’s friend, Jeanne, called to tell me that it was time to pick up the furniture. Louesa was selling her house and moving to a retirement home. I found a professional furniture mover from St. Louis with experience in moving antiques, recruited two Minnetrista men—Jon Gray and Dick Cole—to accompany me and headed for Columbia.
If a tree fails, is there a reason?
One thing I’ve often heard from people in the past when talking about tree failure is, “that tree or branch just up and fell.” I wouldn’t go as far as saying it is a pet peeve, but this thinking does bother me a bit as it shows a lack of understanding of trees and how they should be thought about in the landscape. Trees do have inherent risk. They are dynamic, sometimes very large living plants that have to deal with all of nature’s forces, but this doesn’t mean that they die and fall one day out of the blue. There is always more to it.
Give The Gift of Yummy Canned Goods This Holiday Season!
“Happy Holidays! Happy Holidays! While the merry bells keep ringing May your every wish come true!”
Yes, that’s right. It’s time to start thinking about the holidays. I’m sure many of you have begun to be bombarded by all of the Christmas gifts, decorations, and music in the stores already. For some of you, this time of the year is so exciting and wonderful. Others are less than enthused by all of the hype.