2013 Goals Recap....How'd We Do?

Well as this year comes to a close I'd like to take a look at our goals again and see how we did for our 2013 "farming" year.

Dolly loves to play in the snow.

Here is a quick review of those goals from a previous post:

#1  Bless others.  By Sharing experiences and time, making memories with people, and sharing the bounty in various ways.  We'd like to donate to our local food pantry, and to give some of the bounty to family and friends.  We'd also like to incorporate a form of ministry into our efforts: fellowship, discipleship and giving.:)  Value of this goal= Priceless.

#2  Put food in the freezer/pantry at low or no cost.  Pork, chicken, green beans, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, salsa, pickles, canned pumpkin, ground zucchini, frozen corn, frozen broccoli, plus fresh produce over summer too.  Value of this goal= $1,700+

#3  Earn enough from farm to pay property taxes and home owner's insurance. This would also allow us to maintain our farm deferral status for the property taxes.  Value of this goal= $2,600

#4  Have enough $ in the farm account from all of 2013 farm projects to cover the start-up of 2014 farm projects.  This prevents us from dipping into the normal monthly budget to start up the farm projects.  We will need roughly $900 to start up the meat chickens next year (to cover feed, chick costs etc for the first 1.5 batches) until we can sell some to pay the expenses.  For pigs, we will need approximately $725 to purchase the feed and piglets for the year.  Garden, we'd need $200 to cover supplies, seeds etc.  For the hay, we need minimum of $300 to have the 1st cutting of hay custom cut.  Laying hens we'd need $300+ to cover the cost of the chicks and feed to get them to laying age if we want to go into more egg production with a few more hens next year.  As you can see these projects really add up and put a tremendous strain on the budget as we go along in the spring.  It would be nice to not have that strain on the finances as we are getting started for the year.   Value of this goal= $2,700++.

Let's go through them one by one and see how we did.

#1 Bless others.  We were able to share a lot of garden produce and other farm goodies this year.  We managed to put together only a couple boxes of food for the food pantry, I wish we'd have been more regular with this.  There is so much more we could have done.   We do hope we were able to offer others useful advice, humor, skills, and things they needed.  We enjoyed fellowship with others and sharing in the experiences together.  We were even blessed to hear several of the friends we asked to come care for the animals for us while we were gone were happy to come do chores and get a taste of country life as well.  As hard as it is to ask someone to come here and do chores for us it is nice to hear when they enjoy it!

We did have plenty of pork to supply the meat for Mr Wonderful's sister's wedding reception.  It seemed to be a big hit with the wedding guests and we were happy to do that as our gift to the happy couple.  We ended up with a total of 3 hogs this year to keep for ourselves. I think it was a good thing, it sets us up to be able to be more generous or to feed a work crew some awesome pulled pork when we go to start spring projects around here!

We've really tried to share the bounty that has been provided to us and I think we did accomplish this goal this year, BUT in all honestly I think we could have done SO MUCH MORE.

#2  Put food in the freezer/pantry at low or no cost.  We nailed this one many times over!  Our freezer is so packed, we even bought another large upright freezer and that one is full too!  We put up a lot of food this year from the garden and we were pleased that we were able to draw several tags for hunting which did a lot for the freezer filling process!   Our only regret was not keeping more of those tasty pastured chickens for ourselves.   We kept the 3 hogs, 30 or 40 chickens, 2 large turkeys, about 60 quart bags of frozen broccoli, 10 bags of cauliflower, shredded zucchini, 30+ quarts of green beans (had some left over from last year too), canned corn, frozen strawberries and so much more!  One crop failure we had was tomatoes....we hoped to can all kinds of salsa and diced tomatoes and while the vines were loaded with green tomatoes they never ripened well and the ones we tried to ripen inside didn't taste very good and we never had enough to preserve.  Overall though, it was a great year and we are very blessed in the food department!  

#3  Earn enough from the farm to pay property taxes and home owner's insurance.   We did managed to meet this goal, barely.   Boarding the horses here brings in the bulk of the taxes and the profit from the meat chickens brought in the rest.  I really like that the place is somewhat self supporting at least in some small way.  At least it helps to make some of those unexpected expenses a little less frustrating.

#4  Have enough $ in the farm account from all of 2013 farm projects to cover the start-up of 2014 farm projects.  This one is a little tougher to swallow.  I had grand plans of a nice plump savings account by this time that we'd be able to cruise into spring with.  That has not happened.  While there is some in the farm savings account it won't be enough for most of the goals I had set for this category.  We could say we partially met this goal.  We had several expensive learning curves as we finished out this year....#1 we had to feed the hogs longer than expected (with expensive commercial feeds because we ran out of the cheaper feed sources we had earlier in the summer)....and because I was naive and didn't think to schedule the butcher!  What was I thinking?  Anyway that mistake alone cost us several hundred dollars!  We also had to use some of the farm money just to play catch up from some of the months that we were shelling out serious cash to feed 100+ meat chickens!  We'd ignored some expenses while we focused on getting those birds raised and I needed to replenish some of the sinking funds (earmarked savings categories for things like bulk foods when we go buy several hundred pounds of fruits to can for winter etc).   So while most of the projects did pretty well for themselves this year profit-wise we needed the funds for basic things and we don't have those balances in the farm account where we hoped to have them...however we do have a nice full pantry so I say it was worth it!

We have to look at our goals and finances for 2014 and decide how to move forward.  Will we charge a deposit when we take orders for meat chickens?  Will we do a deposit and monthly payment system for the hogs we raise so there won't be so much longer term upfront costs to raising them (this idea might make it easier for people to purchase a whole hog too)?  Will we use some of the tax returns to buy feed and order chicks?  These are all things we will need to decide.  I think there are all kinds of ways to accomplish our goals and provide these products to those who want them.

Miss Maggie dog and Dolly in the background.

It has been an amazingly blessed year.  In looking back, I do admit we took on a little too much for one year.  When we made many of these goals we didn't know that Mr. Wonderful would be working away from home during the work week for 7 months and that our time together and time available to work on projects would be severely limited.  I have to say, I've overdone it some, especially with Mr. Wonderful gone so much.  I find myself in a bit of "recovery" mode these past few months.  Taking a breath to step back from commitments, chores and "busy"ness has been important.  I am going to keep this feeling in mind as we work on a plan for 2014 farm projects for sure!

Thanks to everyone who followed along with us on this adventure this year!  It has been a blast and I can't wait for next year......after a long winter's nap that is.

It Was Time...

Well we finally had to butcher the turkeys.  They were getting to be too damaging to the garden produce and they especially loved cucumbers.  We had fence wire around all the cucumber plants that we could and they would still stick their necks way in the fence wire and peck at as many cucumbers as they could reach.

Then came a new problem.  We have a nice herd of good looking bucks hanging around our property.  These bucks decided that our orchard was the perfect place to rub off all the velvet off their antlers.  The kids alerted me that I might want to come take a look in the orchard the other day....and what I found was at least 2 trees snapped off within a foot of the ground, and about 8 other trees that had been badly scarred and many branches broken off (many are lop-sided trees now).   I am sure we are going to have to replant about a quarter to half of the trees next spring.

We thought our 6 foot fence was enough, we had 6+ strands of hot wire but they just jump right through it.   We could hear the twang of the wire as they jump right on through. We will have to go back and add considerably expense with 2"x4" wire mesh.    We have talked about a 6' fence around our entire 5 acres since that would make the most sense to keep all deer out of the property at all times since someday we might want a 1/4 acre of blueberries or a full acre of strawberries or corn for a corn maze etc.  That might be something we have to consider more seriously now.  It won't take long for the fence to pay for itself if we can avoid replanting fruit trees and prevent garden and landscape crops from being ruined as well.

This picture makes me sick, after all the time we took to prune, inspect, pamper these trees all year we were so upset to see them all damaged like this.  I've been cranky every since I found them this way...

Until we have a chance to protect the trees (in the next couple days) we are letting the kids camp out in the tent in the orchard (they love an excuse to camp out).....when the kids camp out the dogs stay with them.  The dogs hear the deer approaching and chase them off.  It is working well, but we really need to get those cages for the trees done before too long.

The tree in this picture is in the best condition after the damage, it only lost 2 main branches and got a few more skinned up.  It was the prettiest and largest tree we had, it is a nectarine tree.

We needed fencing to be able to surround each tree with a circle of wire mesh to keep the deer from rubbing on them.  All the fencing pieces we had available were being used on the cucumber plants to protect them from the turkeys.  It made me quite sad to butcher the turkeys, but when we thought about the reason we had grown them in the first place (for meat) we decided it was time.  They were full grown and the female, Butterball, had started to lay eggs a couple weeks ago.  At first it seemed like she might want to sit on a nest, but she was a nest deserter and never did sit on it longer than 1 day.

From two turkeys we were able to get 17 lbs of meat, that weight which doesn't include any bones at all!  I thought that was a great amount of meat from just two birds.  We are going to keep the breasts and try to marinate and smoke them for deli meat, and we will grind the rest into turkey burger.  I am excited to have a nice stash of turkey burger.  Helps to round out the protein sources some.

I am really excited about hopefully getting some red meat in the freezer this fall with the hunting tags we have for elk and deer (maybe we will even get a bear for some more tasty breakfast sausage).  We are running quite low on red meat and it will be comforting to have that replenished if possible.  We need to work on purchasing an upright freezer so we can move some of the veggies and other items we need often to the upright and store the meats and longer term storage items in the chest freezer.  

This last weekend we managed to get half of the pears canned (a few we dried too).  We have 3 more boxes to go this evening.  We move on to applesauce, pumpkin puree, diced tomatoes, salsa, a little more corn, dill pickles, and a few odds and end batches of things to close out the canning season.

We have just a few more weeks of the growing season left.  I am pretty sure I am going to try out a hoop house for a season extender to get a little more broccoli, carrots, and lettuce mature before the coldest months of winter hit.  It will be an experiment to see if this type of thing is possible with the winds we get here etc.

I am really going to miss the turkeys following us around and the cute sounds they make, but I won't miss the stress of keeping them from following people walking on the road in front of our house, and the hassle of trying to keep them out of the strawberries and cucumbers.  Oh and I won't miss the gigantic sized poop all over where they like to roost at night!  It was time for a little simplicity to or busy lives around here.  Things will get even simpler once the garden is "bedded" down for the winter too.  It will all happen soon enough I am sure.

Some of the canning so far.

Canning Season...

Last Friday we went on our almost annual trip to pick fruit and prepare for the busiest canning week of our entire year.  We were able to pick 2 varieties of peaches, nectarines, pears, and a few gala apples for fresh eating over the next few weeks.

We had a nice time on the outing, it amazes us every year how little time it takes to pick over 600 lbs of fruit.  We saved our fruit boxes from years past so they all stacked uniformly in the car and had a nice gentle ride home without bruising too badly.

We canned 63 quarts of peaches the next day.  We got all the ones that were ripe done, now we are waiting for the other half to ripen enough to can, hopefully that will be tomorrow.  The canning process goes efficiently and quickly with our skilled helpers and 2 canners going at once.  We had one set up outside on the propane camp stove and one inside.

We keep work time fun and entertaining!

Before we started the peaches we got one batch of green beans canned so we could reclaim the refrigerator space they had been taking up.  After we canned peaches, we did one canner load of corn and also a batch of dill pickles.  Oh and Mr. Wonderful didn't want the peach juice to go to waste so he canned that into a jam/jelly of sorts.:)   It tastes pretty good!

I really enjoy this time of year, few things top that feeling of being prepared for winter and tighter finances that no doubt will be coming.  Knowing we've put in the hard work and that we have healthy foods for our family is comforting.  We like that we got to make some silly memories and that the kids are learning some great skills at the same time.

Socially speaking, it can be a little hard because we feel isolated while we focus on all this food preservation (partly because we are so busy, and partly because it feels like most people don't understand our desire for doing this sort of thing), but at the same time it is enjoyable enough work, it isn't so bad. I look forward to getting back to doing a little more with friends and family soon though.  I am already brainstorming an idea for a possible fall party of some kind.  Maybe, we shall see.

No More Messy Boil Overs...

I received a really cool gift for my recent birthday from a dear friend of mine.  I had to share about it because it works too well to keep to myself.

It is a silicone lid that prevents things from boiling over.  As you can imagine, on any given day I have a few things going on simultaneously and I get distracted from things on the stove on occasion.  Just the week before I received this gift I had accidentally let a pot of sweet pickle syrup boil over (really really sugary syrup I might add)!!!!  It was a huge sticky mess!  I had to lift the top of the stove and wipe it all up from under the burners, then I unplugged the burner and took out the drip bowl and washed and dried it as well.  With that time consuming mess freshly on my mind, it is safe to say, I was pretty excited to receive this gift!

Doesn't this look daring having a pot so full?  This is a tall pot of corn I am boiling to hot pack into jars for canning.  It is almost ready to boil over now!

I placed the fancy lid over it and waited, wondering if it could possibly work with the pot this full!

Here is a close up of the name of it.  Kuhn Rikon made in Switzerland.  I really like the colors too!

Here it is starting to boil hard and the foam is coming up through the center softer silicone "petals".  The "petals" almost flap the bubble down a little like it is giving it a talking to about settling down and not making a mess.:)

Here it is several minutes still on high heat when by now without the lid we'd have had a HUGE mess to clean up without this handy lid on there.  The foam never amounted to more than this even when I left it longer.  This is going to be a very handy item to have in my kitchen for sure!

A heartfelt THANK YOU to my dear friend who thought of me and got this great gift for me.  I feel loved!

If you'd like one of these handy lids, they are available HERE and they have several sizes and colors to choose from.(I receive no incentive, I am just pleased with this item!)  I am sure they are available in other places as well. 

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.