Let it rain CORN and BEANS!

The MVG is in full swing and the vertical gardening is proving to be well worth the time and energy to set up.  As you can see in the picture above there is lots of green leaves and plump veggies to harvest.  This week, in preparation for the annual Harvest BBQ, we had our bean and corn harvests!

The bean box has matured and is producing handfuls upon handfuls of long firm Burgundy beans.  These beans are great when eaten raw but also taste good when canned or used in casseroles.  I will be using all three types of beans, Burgundy, Blue Lake and Scarlet Emperor, to make a bean stir-fry for this year's Harvest BBQ.  Additionally, any beans not canned or eaten have been blanched and frozen.

Here is our bean breakdown for this season:

• 4 quarts blanched and frozen
• 2 pints of Bread and Butter beans

Our corn harvest occurred on a cool Wednesday morning.  The harvest went well but is very small when compared to our corn harvests in the past.  We reduced our number of corn rows and used the remaining years-old corn seed when planting this year's corn crop. This decrease in quantity and quality has brought forth a small corn harvest for the 2012 victory garden season.  Luckily we had a great harvest last year and have plenty in storage for the Harvest BBQ this year.  Elote! Horn Corn! Cheese Corn! Mayo Corn! It does not matter what you call the yummy corn dish but one this is for certain... corn, lime mayo, Cojita cheese and hot sauce will be on the 2012 Harvest BBQ menu.

Corn husked and ready to be blanched.

I decided to store only the corn kernels from this year's harvest.  Here is my step by step process for freezing corn kernels.

1. Blanch the ears of corn in boiling water for five minutes.
2. Immediately transfer the corn to a cold water bath to cool down.
3. Once the ears are cool, cut the corn kernels off and pack them in Ziploc freezer bags.

I was able to pack 5 quarts of corn.  It might not sound like much but to eat sweet corn in the dead of winter is sweet delight!