The Busy Season...

We are entering into one of our busiest seasons yet!  Homeschool has started up in full swing and currently takes up most of my available hours in the day at least 4 days per week.  The food preservation processes are in full swing with the garden produce and with the local harvests of fruits and things.  Pretty soon activities are going to be starting back up more in church/community and we want to try to take part in some of them.  Then of course Mr. Wonderful's work schedule is fuller than ever as he tries to meet deadlines on his latest construction/excavation project.   Finally, hunting seasons will be gearing up before we know it!  Like I said, busy!

Things are very productive on the home-front lately!  This week, on top of everything else, I am crunching numbers to determine what all we need to preserve for the year's worth of food (the stuff we can reasonably preserve). We try to do the math and stick to the most productive and financially reasonably items to focus our time on for the most part.  If there is something we use a lot of that someone else can produce better or much cheaper, we save ourselves the work, and we buy in bulk instead or directly from the producer when possible.

One evening's harvest for dinner...

Pickles and sweet relish that Sunshine made!

Fresh picked corn...

Keeping the mess outside!  

Whippersnapper took pictures for me and got corn juice all over the lens....hence the soft focus effect!

Shucking corn...

Have you ever pondered about how much your family consumes per year in basic food items?  For instance we have about 8 or 9 main veggies we enjoy to have cooked or fresh most of the year.  Those would normally be zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, potatoes, onions, carrots, and lettuce/greens etc. Then there is of course corn, which always confuses me....we eat it like a vegetable, but it really isn't is it?   Do you think about how much you'd likely eat of each particular item?  I never used to!

This year, I just started thinking in general terms.  I asked myself simple questions like...."How often do we tend to buy and eat frozen or fresh broccoli from the store?" and  "If we could get it really cheap, would we eat even more than we do now?"  Then I started to break it down from there to figure out how much we need  to get put up for "winter" (really all year until we can harvest again from the garden next summer)!  I set a goal of 40 quart bags of frozen broccoli because it wasn't likely we'd have it once per week normally if I was buying it from the store.  Then as the season rolled on we realized we were able to surpass the goal of those 40 quart bags.  Yet, the broccoli was still going strong.  So we upped it to 60 quarts.  This worked out really well because the green beans are not producing like we'd hoped and we will have to make up for that with something extra in the veggies category, like broccoli!  Plus with extra broccoli we can enjoy a little more broccoli cheese soup than we might have normally, mmmm mmm. Once we hit that goal, we will be happy to give lots away (we've already given quite a bit away), and maybe sell some as well to help re-coop the costs of the seed starting supplies in the spring.  Money is always tight that time of year, yet getting those starts going is important for the later crops to flourish and produce the next year's food supply.

Then we have the fruits we enjoy, we LOVE fruit and consume quite a lot as a family~

Peaches~ Mostly we enjoy canned and eaten fresh when in season of course.

Pears~  Canned pear slices, as well as pearsauce which is like applesauce, and dried pears too.

Apples~ Canned applesauce (LOTS!) and apple butter and maybe a few jars of apple pie filling.

Cherries~  We enjoy them mostly fresh, but 2nd best is frozen like mini lollipops, and 3rd best canned.

Grapes~  Again the best is frozen and eaten while still frozen, that is even better than fresh for us!  We are known to buy 15++ lbs of grapes when they are in season and rock bottom priced and freeze them in a big container and snack on them during schooling or movies for weeks!

Berries of many kinds~  Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, black berries for jams, jellies, cobblers, smoothies, etc.  We like to flash freeze some on a cookie sheet and package them in bags loosely so we can take out a few here and there for muffins or smoothies without defrosting an entire quart bag of frozen berries at a time.  We eat blueberries frozen like popcorn for a snack!

Of course we enjoy other fruits fresh and canned weekly from the store that we don't have to preserve, thank goodness!  These would be bananas, mangos, grapefruits (LOTS), oranges, fresh apples, mandarin oranges in light syrup, fruit cocktail in fruit juice, applesauce (when we run out of homemade) and pineapple tidbits in fruit juice.

Those are just the fruits.  I will probably talk about veggies in a later post towards the end of the growing season once I know more what the average yield is.  Whenever we can, we also try to gather things that are essentially free like huckleberries, blackberries, morel and oyster mushrooms, and we also try to harvest animals such as elk, deer, bear, and birds such as grouse and maybe a wild turkey when we have the tags to do so.  The wild meat helps our annual grocery budget immensely.  I have a very skilled husband that doesn't need much gear each year to get the job done, which I am super thankful for.  I hunt too but not to the degree he does, now we have 2 young hunters coming up in the ranks!  Two kids are taking Hunter's Safety Classes right now in fact.  We've always cut and wrapped our own meat, (even the whole beef we bought, whew what a job!)  Processing our own meat really saves a bundle!  As I've written about previously, we raised meat chickens this year which added a sizable amount of quality protein for the year.  The pigs round out the meat selection nicely and they compliment the other game meats because we can use the fattier cuts of the pork to mix with the leaner ground game meats for excellent flavor.

All in all, I feel so incredibly blessed that we both had people in our lives growing up that taught these skills to us, that we've continued to hone the skills over the years together as a couple with our own family, and that we have the helpers that we need to make it happen efficiently!  That is a huge factor, having well trained help that isn't afraid to pitch in wherever they can!  Granted, if we didn't have so many "helpers" we wouldn't be needing to put up near as much each year either.    Funny how that works.

To some I am sure we seem crazy!  Spending all this time and effort just to put food in the pantry and freezer when we could just go to town and buy it (maybe).  There are several reasons why we don't just do that, the two main ones are money and health!  To be really honest, there isn't much REAL savings in doing it ourselves (especially when we figure in the time, which we don't) because by the time we buy the fruit, the fuel to get it home, the sugar (even in very low sugar syrups it adds up), the lids for the jars, etc.  It comes in at maybe at most 10% cheaper than conventional types probably the same or a possibly costs us a little more than it would on a really good sale at the store (how often would it be on sale when I needed it though?) and 35%++ cheaper than organic versions.  The fruit we buy is not officially organic, but it is grown on a small scale and more naturally than most commercial producers and we control what all goes into those jars and how it is handled while being processed as well.  That gives us a little more peace of mind for our health.

Another reason we go to all this work, is to teach our children something useful and memorable.  You never know when these old fashioned skills will help them make it through a tough season in their lives one day or how the work ethic they are learning will come in handy in their future career or marriage even.  Or maybe they will appreciate learn the value of food and not to waste it by seeing how much work it takes to preserve just 1 quart of food!

Having a connection to the food you are eating is a wonderful thing.  When we are harvesting things I can't help, but start thinking of how we carefully placed those small seeds in the trays of soil to start indoors all those months ago.  Then how we tended the little seedlings each and every day.  Then how we transplanted them all into larger pots and watched them take off in growth.  Oh and we can't forget the process of taking them all in and out every morning and evening to properly harden them off to fluctuating weather! Finally a warm spring day where we planted that same group of plants in the garden with high hopes of good weather to grow well.  The late night panicked trips out in the garden with piles of sheets and blankets to guard those tender plants from a late spring frost that threatens to kill all our efforts thus far.  We can't forget the diligent watering and weeding to help it flourish and the patience to wait for it to eventually produce food!   That is just to get you to the point of actually harvesting that food....

Now a different kind of work begins when we preserve or cook these foods!  All of these things are a powerful process to reflect on, especially as you enjoy that tasty meal featuring some of your homegrown items.  It connects me with thoughts of our Creator so much more than if I simply selected a can off the shelf of a store or a bag of frozen veggies from the freezer section.

Granted, there is a LOT of work that goes into this way of life, and we've had to limit what we get involved with outside of homeschool, homemaking, and farm care.  I am sure there will be many years we end up not being able to do near this much as life has a way of throwing curve balls, but for the years we can, we will celebrate all year long with thankfulness in or hearts.

Garden Bounty...

Wow!  This is really fun.  Getting to harvest all the bounty has to be my favorite thing about gardening, well it is a close 2nd to seeing the little seedlings come up anyway!

Here are a few pics from this morning's harvest session.  

I love all the colors!

This picture shows the colors of the Bright Lights Swiss Chard a little better.

To the left is a 1 Ball Squash to the right is an 8 Ball Zucchini Squash, in the middle is a couple straight neck summer squash.

Here are the side shoots we've been getting from the once harvested broccoli plants.  These plants were first harvested about 2-3 weeks ago.  These side shoots add up surprisingly fast.  Some of the side shoots are more like secondary heads and were about 3" across!  These smaller shoots, if they keep producing like this, will really help us reach our goal of 40 quart bags in the freezer for winter.:)   By the way, this red tub is a 7 1/2 gallon size and it is very handy in the garden for transporting to and from the house.  I am really glad I got it!

Here are a few peppers we harvested this morning.  We will likely donate a few of these to the local pantry because we'd only use one or two a week.  Once we get some tomatoes ripe to make salsa we will really use up the peppers I am sure.  The jalapeno peppers are about 2 weeks away from being the right size so hopefully the tomatoes will cooperate with that schedule so we can put up some tasty salsa!

This morning's green bean harvest.  Honestly we are a little disappointed in the green bean crop this year, what we are getting is nice quality and very tasty but we've had a mole eating plants left and right and there are barely enough to supply our fresh eating needs let along enough to put up for winter.  Thankfully we still have about 25 quart jars from last year so it won't take much to get us up to what we need.  

Here is our first attempt at growing celery, I am pleased with the turn out. Tobers LOVES this celery and eats it all the time dipped in peanut butter.:)

Sunshine just finished cutting the cauliflower into smaller pieces for the blanching process to get it into the freezer.  Looks like we got about 3-4 quart bags worth!

A pile of Sweet Banana Peppers too!

Thanks for following along on our harvest adventure this morning.

Turkey Check Up...

Well we still have Butterball and Snowball, the two turkeys we've managed to keep alive.  Or maybe it would be better to phrase it that they've managed to stay alive in spite of us.  However you want to think about it works for me.  They love free-ranging and we love having them free-range.  They have continued to be good foragers and have left the garden plants alone for the most part.  They are efficient eaters of all things creepy-crawly and green-n-tasty, they only seem to eat a small amount of commercial feed.  We keep some commercial feed available at all times.  They also get into the pig feed we soak for the pigs.  I think they think they have it made here, what a smorgasbord they have to choose from really!

They follow us everywhere as we go about our chores around the place, they even follow the boys down to the dirt pile where they play and then they follow them back when they head back to the house.  I truly adore all the sounds they make as we work in the garden.  I had no idea we'd enjoy turkeys this much.

Butterball checking out the freshly cut hay.

Butterball on the left, Snowball on the right.

I thought we were going to get some electric fence action here but Snowball was just after a bug on the post and didn't touch the fence in the process.  Good thing too, because that fence is really hot!

They have the darkest eyes and the strangest looking heads!

They are really cool animals.  We still aren't sure if we will do turkeys next year.  They were a rather expensive adventure to get started and we weren't all that successful in keeping many alive. We will keep thinking about it and see what we can afford to do next spring.  For now, we are really enjoying these two characters.

Fall Crops? Maybe.

We are attempting a few fall crops this year.  We've never planted a fall crop before, but we thought we'd try since we have the room and some things were done for the season.  The first one we planted was the broccoli.  I had planted an open pollinated variety called De Cicco but I didn't care for the growing habits, they had small little florets mixed in a ton of foliage and very little yield per plant.  So I pulled out that variety and planted my favorite variety this year called Imperial from Johnny's Seeds  it is an excellent variety with large heads and seems to handle the heat of summer well.  I am not sure how well it will do being planted the first of August, but we will try for a nice fall crop and see how it goes.

Here is the row marked off with jute string and seeded already.  We will put a fresh layer of mulch around the plants once they are up and established well.  We also need some more on the walkway as the weeds are starting to peek through because the mulch is too thin.

Here we just finished pulling out all the old pea vines.  We planted some snap peas and they were excellent!  We had one package of seeds left so we replanted as many as we had for another fall crop of these tasty peas.  They were our favorite crop to snack on while in the garden while they lasted!

As far as the fall crops go, we plan to also plant another crop of cauliflower (Amazing Cauliflower from Johnny's Seed) and a purple cauliflower variety  (Violetta Italia from Burgess), carrots (Bolero from Johhnys Seeds), radishes, lettuce, and spinach.  I might even start some ornamental kale (from Harris Seeds) from seed if I get really organized!

The kids' help is very much appreciated, just knowing the kids enjoy the garden, love eating the veggies that come from it makes it feel more worthwhile.  We've been blessed by so many aspects of this process from early February when we started seeds indoors, clear through the season so far the kids have been right there with me, excited sharing in the memories, hard work, and fun of it all.  I wouldn't have it any other way, even when there are mishaps and squished plants, or premature harvest efforts.  It doesn't hurt that I have a husband who thinks weeding is therapeutic, he enjoys weeding in the early mornings or evenings on the weekends whenever he can.  For that I am SUPER thankful!

Sunshine has really taken voluntary ownership of the garden this year, I find her tending plants, helping to train them up the supports, weeding as she walks to do other chores, etc.    Just today, she asked if she could make some pickles.  I was busy working on the new school year's lessons plans so I told her to go for it!  She harvested some cucumbers and canned a few jars of Low-Sodium Sweet Dill Pickles (they are a family favorite that many request us to make for them) she managed to do the whole process herself and they turned out beautifully!  She even cut some in the sandwich stacker style.  I was pretty impressed she took that on without hesitation.  I guess those years of doing it together has really paid off.  

Tobers and Whippersnapper are excellent harvest assistants, they regularly bring in the bounty for me.  I think it is like a scavenger hunt for them, many times they bring things in I didn't even realize were ready or couldn't see like they can at their vantage point (and a few things that weren't quite ready too, oops).  They are a really big help.  Spud Man keeps busy with his pig plot portion of the garden and weeding enough to feed his pig each day.  The pigs actually like the weeds better than the actual crops we planted for them to forage.

I will try to keep you posted on how the fall crops turn out, hopefully there is something positive to report back on in a few weeks time.

Front Flowerbed Fun...

We've been weeding, and weeding, and weeding some more.  This week it was the front flower bed, again, for the 5th time this season.  We didn't have enough in the landscaping budget to put too many perennials in the front bed this spring so we filled it with sunflowers and gourds to help cover some of the bare areas.  So far that plan is working out pretty nicely.

Here is an overview of what it looks like from the house looking towards the road.

Here is what this same section looked like just 1 month ago...

The next few pictures are the rest of the front flower bed sections.

Here are some close ups of our favorite sunflowers.  They are so cheerful and fun!

Aren't they beautiful?  The honey bees sure like them!

Here are some of the gourd selection we ended up with.  They are pretty fun and they will make great fall decor additions!

That is the progress on the front flower bed so far this year.  I like the looks of it so far, I will enjoy adding in some shrubs, evergreens, and more perennials next spring, but for now this was a fun way to fill up the larger spaces.

Garden Tour Early August...

The garden is doing pretty good, there are a few crops I wish had done better (like the green beans, cucumbers, and corn), but overall they still look good and we are getting some bounty from even the weaker crops so we have much to be thankful for.  The weeds have been very healthy this year and keep finding ways to create more work for us, but the deep straw mulch helps so much I can't complain too much!

Here are a few overview pics of the garden and you can see the hay field has been cut for the 2nd cutting too.

Cucumbers, cantaloupe, dill, celery, chicken run etc.

Green beans, tomatoes, and flowers.

Swiss chard, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, onions, carrots, zucchini, crookneck, and furthest out is the pig plot area that has mangels, canola, turnips, carrots etc.

Sunshine is checking out the Crenshaw melons.

The strawberries and corn beyond that.  The orchard is beyond the corn.

1 Ball yellow squash, I love these for stuffing!

Broccoli head, we have harvested about 75% of the plants now (we have about 90 plants) and we have about 34+ quart bags of  broccoli in the freezer (plus we've eaten a few meals worth too), our goal is about 45 bags.  We will continue to get some side shoots off the harvested plants later in the season to help us get to our goal.  We also plan to donate some of the larger remaining heads to the local food pantry if it is ripe on their next distribution day.

Some of the cantaloupe are gaining in size and might have a chance of ripening in time before frost.  We were unsure if we should grow melons as they take up a lot of space and we have never had good luck with melons, but we had to at least try now that we have so much more room to grow things.  So far so good on these.

My first year growing cauliflower is, so far, a success.  It tastes good, we've frozen a little here and there but mostly we've been eating it for dinner.  We did a few bags of frozen mixed broccoli and cauliflower which will be nice in the winter.  I am still learning how to tell when they are fully ripe and when to tie the leaves around the heads to prevent sunburn.  

We had to replant the cucumbers 2 times this year so they are a little later and I haven't gotten the yields I hoped for to be able to make pickles.  The only seeds I had left to reseed with were a space saving type so the vines are relatively small but are producing well for such small vines.  They have great flavor so far.

The lemon cucumbers are almost ripe and Mr. Wonderful can't wait for the first one of the season!  He LOVES these little gems.

The lettuce patch is hanging in there surprisingly well for such high temps lately.  It tastes good still and I'd love to plant this kind again next year!  Too bad I am not sure which mix this was. 

Here is a nice purple kohlrabi, we also have white and they both taste really good.  We sold about 22 to the local fruit stand because we had too many.  What we have left we should be able to eat before they grow too large to be tasty.

This spaghetti squash plant is really happy!  It is producing lots of squash, probably more than we'd eat so we might have a few to share and sell at some point.

At the end of the day with all the watering, weeding, harvesting, and tending....this is how we feel....

Then again, living here is a dream come true and no matter the hard work we are blessed and really enjoying it!  God has been so good to us.