Yes, we can (and dry, and store). On preserving.

A couple months ago we were working on canning some of our harvest and farmer's market finds.  We have 8 jars of pickled beets (one of which also has some parsnips it in because we didn't have enough beets to fill that jar).  Two of the jars have golden beets, so the distinctive red/purple color is lacking.  I'm sure they will taste just as delicious.

A ceramic pot for sauerkraut

At the farmer's market about as long ago, we bought some peaches and cabbage.  We are making sauerkraut with the cabbage, fermenting in a ceramic pot rather than canning, because it will have more health benefits.



The peaches, while bought at the farmer's market that requires the food to be organic, is not local.  However, the woman offered me a deal for her last two quart-baskets.  With the peaches, I wanted some peach butter.  I haven't had it before but it sounds great.  I have been a bit turned off by the massive amounts of white processed sugar in our foods.  That's one area I want to cut back on (though I don't foresee cutting it out completely in our near future).  I did some searching and found a recipe for sugar-free peach butter.  I've heard of using concentrated apple juice and am glad to put this tip into use. 

We also took our hot peppers and hung them to dry around the kitchen, where we also hang our herbs.

(Yes, we're late posting this.  These activities were done in September, but we're now getting around to blogging about it).