Post #200!! Fall is here. Orchard care and wood-chips

First off, last weeks preserving efforts

I finally tried the Mrs Wages Dilly Beans mix!  I used the best beans of the pick.  6 pints

I got 3 and a half quarts of tomato sauce.  If you look at the previous posting I had already made 10 pints of pasta sauce.  The remaining tomatoes were initially too green to use so i let them ripen and made them into plain sauce.

15 quarts of green beans!  I processed them an extra 10 mins to soften them up a bit more.

Blueberries

Well, i wanted to clean up the sawmill - there was a lot of debris, slabs, and sawdust cluttering the place up and its now cool enough that I could start milling some more.   So after I moved out a bunch of slabs and organized some pieces that I might feed through the chipper (I need more wood chips already!) I was able to get to the sawdust.  I shoveled out 3 front loader buckets full of sawdust and placed it on the blueberries - rather thick.

As a side note, I suspected that my sawmill base was out of level so i grabbed a carpenters level and checked it out after I had cleaned up,  The base was almost perfectly level side-to-side.  However, front to back it wasn't - and I think I initially set it up incorrectly!  I front-to-back is level from the top of the guide rail to the opposite bed flat - but i think its supposed to be leveled from one side flat to the other side flat!  I am going to have to check the manual to make sure.  

I have 22 plants and was able to get all but 10 of them dressed.   I will be running the mill more though soon so I will have plenty of sawdust in the future.

Wood-chips

I continued to place the wood-chips around the orchard trees.  I put a full front-loader bucket full around each tree.  I ran out of wood chips before i finished.  I am planing on chipping some of the mill ends next weekend.

I preferentially placed wood-chips around the plum trees since they are looking a bit harsh

Pumpkins are ripening!

I didn't have any decent pictures of these so I decided to take a few shots.  The "Cinderella" pumpkins are in the back nearest the house.

They are a striking orange.

A few spaghetti squash there.  Way more then I wanted.

I am trying to push these on people at work.  I have so much powdered pumpkin left from last year, I really really don't want any more!  Although i do plan on testing the new pumpkin type out and probably dehydrate and powder that.

Castor beans are ripening!

They are still growing too!  I need to put some sacks around the seed bunches otherwise they are going to exploded their seeds all over the place!  I want to have enough left for seeds for next year!  I have only managed to save 5 beans so far!

This guy is about 7-8 feet tall now (that post is over 6 feet tall).  Still shorter than the ones mom and dad grew - those would get 10 feet or more!

Harvest

I picked tomatoes, Kale, and broccoli before I left.  Sorry, I only got pics of the tomatoes.   I processed the broccoli (blanched and froze) and kale (braised it with sausage and onions - it was dinner) Sunday night and then sorted and processed some of the tomatoes Monday night.  I used the Mrs Wages chili mix again.  After reviewing how much tomato sauce I have in storage, i don't feel bad about making more chili base!

Before sorting.  I don't have all of them in there though.  I got the volunteers from the big patch and the front patch as well.

After sorting.  I am letting these ripen up before i process them into more chili base.

the chili base I made from the first sort of the tomatoes.  I was surprised at how much I had.  The mix is supposed to be used for 5 pints and I got 6.5.  I made chili with the left over .5 pint along with some of my old (2013) tomatoes.  It tastes great!