Too Hot again!

Still more elderberries

I didnt pick elderberries on Friday.  Decided it would be too late by the time we got them all cleaned.  So Saturday I got to picking... 30 quarts (on the stem)!

Then on Sunday I picked another 18 quarts (sorry, no pictures from Sunday).  I do know that we got between 6 and 7 gallons from Saturday and Sundays pickings!  Then, before I left Monday, I got more - I don't know how many yet; Katherine is still destemming them I think.  Of the last batch we put at least one gallon of them into the freeze-dryer!  We will see how it goes.  Mom was nice enough to let me put some out berries into her freezer, so I took 6 gallons over to her place before we left.

Also, blackberries and strawberries

We picked some blackberries off of the thornless bushes we planted in 2015.  Pretty goo yeilds for such young plants!

We got another pint (guessing) just before we left.  Plenty enough for a decent size pie!

Not a lot of strawberries - but enough to eat!  I put these into the freeze dryer too!

A few other pickings...

First of summer squash from the late plantings!

Onions are ready but it was too damned hot to do much work outside.  I was already half-dead from picking berries and re-setting up the  fence around the beans.

First onion, a couple more volunteer tomatoes and a couple apples that the birds had damaged.

Grape Vines

While do a ride around I noticed that one of the grape vine arbor posts was leaning way in!  Turns out that it rotted off at ground level.  I will have to replace it.  Until I get a chance, I just braced it with a couple of small posts.

On the lighter side of things - the grape vines are growing nicely!  

I think that the nitrogen I added last year really helped.  I plan on adding some more early next year.

Fruit trees

I found another peach!  It looks rough though.  I wonder how long it will last?

Here are 4 apples that I found - 2 had been pecked by birds.  I picked them (above).

Same apples - I sliced them up an put them in freeze-dryer

Crazy crab-apple bloomed recently - now it has little apples on!  

We figure its going to die - trees will do this when they are stressed.

These are crab-apples - believe it or not!  Large variety that hasn't produced much until this year.

Hornets nest!  Getting bigger!  I want to keep them around - they aren't as mean as  yellowjackets and they eat other bugs.

It looks like the parrot tree (or whatever it is!) is going to make it after all!  It looked mostly dead but the rains seem to have brought some of it back to life!

Just a couple green sprigs there - which some bugs managed to eat - sheesh!  But it seems to be fighting

I was riding around and noticed that my english walnut trees were taking bug damage!  I looked closer and found them - little fuzzy "acid dropper" worms!  I sprayed them with sevin.  I didn't see any worms the next day.  I hope the trees recover.

Fuzzy worm damaged english walnuts

Worms also got one of my butternuts too!  Its also recovering.  

Gardens

We might get something from our corn!  We will have to wait another week I think - not quiet ready. We talked to neighbor, he said he saw a mommy and several baby racoons just across the road from our place.. they probably are the ones eating my fruit!  They love corn and you can see where they have been tearing up the field corn..

Weeds are taking over!

Squash plants are doing nicely.  I actually picked a summer squash!  They had just started blooming last weekend!

the front four plants are summer squash (I think) - winter squash in the back.

Deer Issues in the Bean Patch!

I saw more deer eating away at the bean patch again this weekend!  The electric fence was evidently not working.  I went to put some peanut butter bait on the fence and found that it was not functioning. So I connected the bean patch fence to the "hardwired" fencer!  No I have it baited and connected to a kick ass voltage - that should get thier attention!  I hope my beans are far enough along that they recover and produce!

More Flail Mowing

I was able to get the flail mower out and mowed that field up around the pecan trees.  This area wasn't as hard to mow as the hill was!  Not as dry so I didn't have to backtrack as much either.

Equipment problems

I have been nursing my mower around because of leaking transmission oil and a loose drive belt. Somewhere along the line I got a bad leak in my left rear tire.  It wont hold pressure worth a damn now.  I barely got the grass mowed around the pecans before I gave up.  I didnt have the right patches to plug the hole!  I ordered some more patches - they should be here Tuesday.  I wish the replacement drive belts would make it here before we go up next time, but they haven't shipped yet so there is not much chance of that.

Main mower is down!  

Rainy start this weekend

Green Beans

Before we left we tackled the green beans from last weekend.  We shelled a lot of them out, but still managed to get enough to can.  We got 12 and a half quarts of green beans canned.  Here they are:

Here are the ones we shelled out, all spread out to dry for storage:

Canning Vegetable soup

We made it up to the farm Friday afternoon (we were up late canning those green beans above!).  I started in on cleaning the carrots I salvaged from the paw-paw patch.  Unfortunately, the carrots left over from mom's patch fermented , so those were a waste.  At least I got the bulk of those dried!  On that point, they weren't as dry as I would have liked them, so I put them back in the drier; I am going leave them there until they get crisp!  Anyway, I cleaned and chopped the carrots from the paw-paw patch and got almost exactly 1.5 quarts!  This is enough to make one batch of  the Ball veggie soup recipe!  So I went ahead and cleaned/cubed up some potatoes and Katherine did up the onions and celery.  We got a late start on them, so we didn't get done until about 2am!   Here are some pictures:

We got 16 and one-half pints of veggie soup cooked up!

 We did up a 1 C jar of "leftover soup" so that it would be cooked correctly .  We will try it today to see if its any good.

We are currently looking at recipes that include tomatoes an maybe potatoes so that we can continue to save these crops.  I hate wasting food!

Grape juice!

I saved the "must" from the wine I started a couple of weeks ago with the idea of trying to make seconds wine or jelly or something.  I hate to waste the grape skins that still have so much flavor!  Well, I finally got to them today (its too wet to do what I want to do so I stay inside and make a mess!).  I took the must out of the nylon mesh bags that were the basis for each of the 5 gal batches of wine I started.  I boiled the must with about 1 gal of water for each batch (they were in some water from when I saved them).   I should say its quite a mess!  Once I got the juice out and strained I tasted it - it was SOUR!  The fermentation evidently ate all the sugar out of the must - which is good for wine but bad for making juice with the seconds!  Anyway, I added enough sugar to the juice to make an extra-light syrup and canned it.  I got 9 quarts! (7 quarts and 4 pints - I did add a little water to the last two jars to fill but it shouldn't effect flavor).

Concord wine progress

I raked the wine again.  It looked like the primary fermentation is well over.  While raking I noticed that there is still a considerable carbonation in the wine.  I will let it sit for at least one more week before I bottle.  I may decide to clarify, although I am not sure why I should since its just for personal consumption.  I will think about it.

Pears

Went over to mom's to sharpen her riding mower blades (I started down that path before but the blades were REALLY tight, so I brought an air-impact wrench this time!) .  I got 3 out of 4 blades off, sharpened, and back on.  The one blade just wouldn't budge.  I will either have to take the deck off or think of something else.   While i was over there i picked some pears (keifer and/or barlet - she wasn't sure - I can relate! lol).  I want to make some pear wine - maybe some "perry" which is a fizzy pear wine!  I need to order some champagne bottles for the perry!  I looked at the jonahan apples - they are good to pick whenever - so maybe next weekend I will get some apples for pies, jellies and other canning delights!

Last of the tomatoes! 

Katherine processed the last of the tomatoes this weekend!  They were done using the vitamix and pressure canned in pint jars.  12.5 pints.  Now to go back and tally all the tomatoes.  Rough estimates aren't as impressive as I that I didn't record the earliest canning of the Mrs Wages salsas.

Begining of the End of the gardens for the year

I took up the black plastic row covers from the sunflower field and along the inside of the big patch.  Then i ran the leaf vacuum/mower over the corn and bean patch (and part of the tomato patch that I had cleared) to get rid of the smartweed seed heads.  It was a real chore since the weeds were evidently still quite wet and the vacuum clogged and stalled frequently.  I eventually removed all of the tomato trellis stuff as well (and broke a tine off of my digging fork! ARG).  I am hopeful that it will be drier next time I am up and I will mow/vacuum the rest of the garden (except the eggplants).  Maybe I will even do a quick till and seed with vetch.

More food processing! Cabbages, Peaches, Elderberries, Tomatoes, Cukes

Elderberry Syrup

Katherine processed the elderberry "2nd"s into elderberry syrup.  Recipe is basically the same as for the jelly except that she used the 2nd's and only added 1/4th the pectin (she actually used 1 pack of the "no sugar needed pectin" to 4 times the juice they call for - so that would be 12 C of 2nd's).  Turned out very nicely!  Canned just like the jelly too.

She got 10 pints of syrup from 12 C of elderberry "2nd's"!

Salsa

We made another 12 pints of salsa from the tomatoes that were ready yesterday.  Again we used the Mrs Wages salsa (medium) mix.

12 Pints Salsa

Pickles

We did up the cucumbers using the Mrs Wages Kosher dill mix.  We "chunked" the cukes instead of making them as spears or sliced.  I like them this way - I guess they would be called "salad" pickles.

Total of 13 quarts of  Kosher Dills!

Corn

Most of  the corn is now off our patch.  We still have some to harvest from the patch over at mom's.  I want to try to dry and can some of the remaining corn.  We got a total of 30 pints frozen from our local patch.

Most of the corn has been harvested from my local patch now - about 30 pints frozen.

Kale, cabbages, broccoli

The real disappointment of this harvest is the Kale and Cabbages.  Besides getting a late start due to the heavy early rains that made many of the cabbages rot out (and removed needed nutrients from the soil) they were attacked by the dreaded cabbage worms!   I only have 2 broccoli plants that have produced anything - and then just enough for Katherine and I to eat at dinner!   The kale was so filthy with bugs that I only gathered enough to freeze 3 quarts!  I went out and sprayed 3 gallons of BT on the whole patch!  I trimmed a lot of the Kale leaves that I didn't harvest and threw them away.  

Kale in foodsaver bags - freezing them first make it easier
to vacuum seal moist/wet veggies.  

I did harvest what cabbages that were ready - many were split!  Sheesh!  Can't catch a break! 

After cleaning and shredding I only got 13 lbs of cabbage.  I used this to start a batch of sauerkraut.

Kraut in the crock!

Lid on and the water seal set!

Now just to do the peaches and the tomatoes... lol

Katherine will probably do the tomatoes as juice.

peaches are for jam!