Independence Days: Season of Work!

Yes, the harvest season is here, and it feels like we are working non-stop putting up food!  Last week, we made grape jam, finished putting away the peaches, and worked on the yard for a bit.  Rick dug out an area for a new flower bed for me in the back yard, and after we removed all the grass, we were disappointed to find concrete about six inches under the surface of the dirt.  So that turned into a week long project of digging out the concrete, but while it was in progress, H had a great time playing in the piles of dirt.

Thursday, the boys and I went to Berry Patch Farms with a friend who used to be a member of the CSA.  We picked raspberries and had lunch together and talked farms and home schooling.  They did not have strawberries at Berry Patch when we went, so Rick and I took the boys back to pick strawberries on Saturday.  It was cold and rainy, but we had a great time.  H found a toad while we were there and enjoyed carrying it around for a bit before letting it go.

When we got home it was too wet to make jam, so we froze most of the berries, and started in on freezing the plums.  I really wanted plum jam, but it’s been a pretty overcast week so far, so they will have to sit in the freezer until another hot, dry, jam day.  We finally measured out the plums and ended up freezing nearly 70 pounds.  There were probably another ten pounds we ended up tossing to the chickens or composting.  We are hoping to trade some with friends who are making lots of apple sauce this year.  😉

Yesterday at the farm, we were allowed to pick an extra bushel each of peppers and tomatoes.  The tomatoes are destined for the freezer.  We were able to roast the Anaheims, and once peeled, we’ll be set for the winter in the green chile department.  Hooray!  Of course, that means I still have lots of work to do this week.  I hope you can understand why the blog’s be so far behind these days!

Here’s the update:

Plant something – quite a few flowers, a pink pampas grass, but no food..

Harvest something – eggs, tomatoes, zucchini, kohlrabi, cukes, raspberries and strawberries, Anaheim peppers.

Preserve something – 15.25 pints grape jam, the rest of the peaches sliced and frozen (except a few I reserved to eat fresh and some set aside for making preserves with strawberries), strawberries and raspberries in the freezer, a few more gallons of tomatoes in the freezer, 67.5 pounds of plums, some corn and some beans to the freezer as well.  Dehydrated jalapenos.

Waste Not – compost and recycling, scraps to chickens, etc.

Want Not – nothing that I can think of right now.