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.

Canning and preservation continues

Cabbage Rolls

Last evening I finally tried the "unrolled cabbage rolls" recipe.  I have been wanting a different way to preserve cabbage as well as a more ready-to-eat out-of-the-jar type meal; this recipe meets fulfills both goals!

The recipe I used: "unstuffed cabbage rolls" gets good reviews from the facebook homesteading group users.  I made slight mods because I didn't have enough garlic and wanted to use up some fresh tomatoes.  Also, I converted to weight based instead of "small cabbage, large onion, etc. and doubled the recipe because I wanted to use as much cabbage as I could.

The modified recipe I used was as follows:

• 1.5 lb Ground venison
• 11 oz chopped onions
• 3.5 lb chopped cabbage
• 1 C shredded carrots
• 9 1/4 C tomatoes (I used about 6 1/4 fresh pureed tomatoes and 3 cups canned tomatoes)
• 1 C water
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 5 1/4 tsp garlic salt (to make up for lack of garlic and to ratio sodium in 2 tsp of salt)

Made 11 pints.  Pressure canned for 75 mins with 15 lb weight.

second batch:

I made a second batch Saturday night to use the remaining cabbage from last week.  Here is the recipe I used:

1 3/4 lb meat
12     oz onion
64     oz cabbage
9 1/4 oz carrots
8         C pureed fresh tomatoes
3              C canned tomatoes from last year
10         oz water
2 1/4 tsp pepper
8            tsp garlic salt

Made 13.5 pint  (I actually canned a half-pint).  Same PC directions.

Applesauce

I made first seasonal applesauce from some of the apples that I gathered at mom's last weekend.  I only did a bus tray full even though I had a bushel in addition to the bus tray.  Some of these apples are ripe, many aren't.  This turned out to be a problem worth noting in the future.  Unripe apples have a lot of pectin and that pectin makes it hard to cook the apples without burning the apples on the bottom of the pan!

Anyway, I burned the apples on the bottom of the pans even though I added a little extra water (1 C instead of 1/2 C as usual).  I went ahead and ran the apples through the victorio and mixed it all together - it did have slightly burned taste so I added some cinnamon - which I don't usually do - in case I want to cook with it.  I canned 9 quarts and 1 pint.

Tomatoes

I brought back the tomatoes I had left from last weekend.  We didn't have time to process them down in the city-house because Katherine has to work on the taxes (she didn't come along with me this weekend so she could try to finish them up).  After an experiment with powdering some dried  tomatoes earlier this week, I decided that  that I would dry these.  I processed them immediately when I got to the farm yesterday afternoon so that they would have plenty of time to dry.  I processed a full 12 trays in the dehydrator, which I think is equivalent to about 7 quarts of juice/sauce.

I picked some more tomatoes.  The tomato plants are looking a bit rough and the tomatoes are looking very poor.  Lots of rotten and "blighted" spots.  I noticed that the eggplants are still looking good but maybe being encroached on by the tomatoes, so i decided to start removing the tomatoes.  I chopped down the plants near the eggplants first an pulled out the trellis stakes there.

Here are the unripe ones.  I am leaving them on the porch this week.  There is enough other food preservation to do, and frankly, I think that I have more than enough tomatoes at this point!  Of the ripe ones that I picked with this batch, some went into the unrolled cabbage rolls above.

And the rest I made into "vitamix sauce".  7 quarts.

String Beans

I decided to pull the bean plants and harvest the beans.  I got about 1/3 through and filled a large bus tray!  Takes a bit of time but there is shade there in the afternoon so I will continue then.

Update: I finished picking the beans - an additional 5 gallon bucket and half of another!  Whew - will be fun processing these this week.

Carrots

The carrots that I picked at mom's place last week finally got processed - i dehydrated them!  Most of them anyway.  Whats left I will pickle this week - or maybe use some other way.  I should mention that I also got some carrots from the paw-paw patch.  They are little baby carrots!  I think maybe I got  2-3 lb.  Still undecided how to process them.

Dried carrots.  They really shrink!

Here are some from the paw-paw patch.  I didn't dig them all - I don't think I will.  Its  just not worth it.

Beets

I also picked the beets in the paw-paw patch.  There were so few, I decided to give them away to Curtis Raker (a farm neighbor).  Curtis had stopped by while I was  picking the beets and carrots and offered me some radishes.  I declined the radishes, but saw a good opportunity to get rid of the beets!

Red beets.  Probably enough to make a few pints of beet pickles.

Cauliflower and broccoli, and eggplants

The broccoli is still putting out side branch florets.  I gathered enough (1.5 C) to  cook with my soup for dinner.  The cauliflower produced a couple of nice heads this week.

I gave the top one to mom and brought the big one back for me and Katherine.

I didn't get any pictures of the eggplant that I harvested this week.  I got about 5 small ones.  I gave one to mom and brought the rest back.

Family get together and harvest wind down.

Yard and orchard care

Of course, I mowed some!  It seems to me its time for the grass to really stop growing, but maybe I am just wishing for that!  I also sprayed the grapes for fungi and worms.  I also sprayed the cherry trees and some of the elderberries (the elderberries have some tent caterpillars).

Family reunion

I went to a family reunion at my cousins house on Saturday.  Pat & Paul hosted.  It was very good to see so many of the family together again!

Katherine made a delicious potato salad with our new potatoes and some of the cucumber relish that she canned just a couple weeks ago.  Unfortunately, due to a wasp incident, Katherine didn't make it to the reunion and the potato salad was all eaten up, so she didn't get any!  We will probably make more this week.

Wine production continues

Below are some pictures of the wine now that I removed the skins and seeds and racked it into the clear carboys for further fermentation.  The directions say to rack it once its specific gravity drops to 1.03, but when I tested the S.G. early last weekend it had already dropped to 1.01!  Anyway, I racked it and it continues to bubble away.   I am actually surprised at how fast the bubbles come since the S.G. is now almost 1!  I looked it up though, and wines can ferment to S.G.'s below 1.0, so I may have a ways to go.  It smells delicious, although the fermentation smells make Katherine nauseated.

Getting cold out!  

It was the first day of fall this past weekend and it sure felt like it!   I thought it best to bring in the squash and pumpkin from the front porch where they were curing.  Below are some pictures showing most of the crop.  I have already given about 12-13 pumpkins away and processed (dried or made leather) out of about 4, I think.  I only gave away 3 spaghetti squash and I think I ate about the same number.   Looks to me like 24 pumpkins and 12 spaghetti squash in the photo below, so total pumpkin harvest was probably about 37 and total spaghetti squash harvest was about 18.  

I didn't even bother with the zucchini count; it was a lot!  I am guessing we ate about 10-15 lbs, made relish of maybe 5-10 lbs, and dried 40-50 lbs per dehydrator load (of which I think there were 4 - but maybe 5 loads).  So  10+5+40*4 =  175 low end, 15+10+50*5 = 275 lbs on the high end!  Therefore, my best "gut-level" guess is probably 200 lbs of summer squash!

Apples 

Katherine and I went to Mile Level Market to look at the apples last Friday, but we didn't find any "seconds".  The "seconds" - or "deer apples" as Mile Level sometimes calls them, are perfect for making applesauce.  Anyway, they had apples for $12/bushel - which is a good deal I think, but I am in no rush for canning more stuff, so I think I will wait until more "deer-apples" come my way.  Besides, I stopped at mom's place and picked about 1.5 bushel of "Prairie Spy" apples from her trees.

Prairie Spy apples from Mom's trees

Carrots

I didn't get around to harvesting my carrots and beets from the paw-paw patch, but I did harvest them from the patch over at mom's place.  I got about 2 plastic shopping bags full.  I gave one to mom since she is the one who really took care of them!  They are in rough shape.  Mom says that if you plan on picking them this late then you really shouldn't plant them as early as I did.  Considering that I got as many carrots as I wanted from the half-row I planted in the front patch, I probably shouldn't have planted them at all!  I have more, I am sure, in the paw-paw patch yet to pick!  We will probably pickle some of these and dry the rest.  They dry quite nicely.  These are not in good enough shape to put in the root cellar.

Hard to see in the bag, but there are some HUGE carrots in there!  

Pyracantha Berries

While I was over at mom's i noticed bright orange/red berries on some of her shrubs.  She told me they were pyracantha berries.  I did some research and found out that they are edible and that people sometimes make jelly and wine from them.  One guy said it was one of his favorite jellies!  So i went and picked some of the berries to make a taste-sample of jelly.  It took almost all day to pick the berries from the "bunches" that I harvested.    I only extracted 4.5 lbs of berries!  I washed them and froze them - i will make jelly later in the year when things settle down more.

Tomatoes

Yes, we had more tomatoes - but far fewer than last time!  I did about 7 quarts in the dehydrator and Katherine made more sauce - 5.5 quarts.  We brought back enough to make 7 quarts of sauce/juice I think (just one bus tray load).  I tried powdering some in the vitamix.  It works, but it does attract moisture I think - it clumps and is a pain to work with.  I didn't powder it all because I am not sure how useful it will be.  I am thinking we could add it to the "juicier" sauces to thicken them up a bit!

Whirlwind of harvesting and preservation!

Well, last weekend we got to the farm and saw that pretty much EVERYTHING was ready to harvest!  This cool weather evidently has kicked everything in to ripening earlier than usual.  So, this is a list of what I have harvested so far:

• elderberries - as they ripen.  So far 25 jars (half-pints) of jelly canned!
• beets - all except "remote" patches - turned about 30 lbs of beets into 16 quarts of pickled beets! They are white/yellow beets!  I had forgotten what i had planted, LOL  See pickled beet recipe below.
• carrots - all except "remote" patches - going to pickle the rough ones today - about 30 lbs total picked.
• corn - about 2/3rds through what we have - i think.  So far I have frozen about 15 pints.  I want to try canning some and drying some.
• tomatoes
• cucumbers
• squash - preserved via zucchini relish, zucchini bread,  and dried A LOT of it!
• pumpkins 
• kale - just a little - but way more to come.  preserved by freezing and drying
• onions - red, white and yellow - curing in the red barn now.  Used some yellows in the pickled beets.  Mom says the white ones don't keep well so I should use them first.
• garlic (all 4 plants - LOL)
• peaches (off mom's trees - we only got one off of ours!)  Preserved by canning and jam.

Pumpkin coming in early!

About 35 lbs of beets!  Despite the red skin, these are yellow beets!

First corn from our patch to be preserved!

The Kale in SS produced well and so far has been the bulk of the preserved Kale.

Zucchini Relish.  Katherine made another batch after this one.  She modified recipe from last year to reduce sugar to 3 C.

The first and only peach off my own tree! (I ate it on my birthday!)

Cucks an tomatoes

Curing the onion harvest in the barn on screens on the bed of the trailer.

Kohlrabi!  

This Kale plant was with the kohlrabi!  I didn't notice it and it became Kale-zilla!

First tomatoes (that we didn't eat immediately) were made into salsa using Mrs Wages mix.  Elderberry jelly on right.

Pickled carrots - 9 pints.  There are more carrots to go, just pickled the nasty ones!

First corn off our own plants this year!  Corn took heavy damages from early rainy season - but we are getting ok yields anyway!

Finally got my last 2 gardens planted!

Went up to farm on Friday, with Katherine to plant the gardens.  The car was packed with plants!  Poor Smokey had to ride on mommies lap!  Anyway, we got there we ate, and then I got to tilling right away.  The ground was still a bit wetter than I liked in some places, but I wasn't going to risk planting any later!  I did the big patch first and tilled in all the mulched horse manure and straw/hay & dirt that I took out of the red barn in the previous weeks.  I didn't use any of the baled hay/straw though - just the stuff that was mixed with manure and dirt.  Then I tilled the paw-paw patch.  I used some of the mulched wood chips from the pile up by the house (the oldest pile - i wanted them as mulched as possible) for mulch - just about 5 loader buckets full.  I also had 2 hay bales there that I dropped off a couple weekends ago that I decided to till in.  BIG MISTAKE!!  DO NOT TRY TO TILL HAY/STRAW BALES into your soil!  I had to go over it many times, compressing the soil more each time - grrrr.  Finally got the soil to an acceptable state (barely) for planting.

The next day, Saturday, I started planting the big patch.  First I put down the black plastic around the borders.  This was made more difficult because I did not label or put aside the plastic that I needed so I had to filter through all of my plastic rolls to get it right!  Also, of course, I had to reset the end fence.  The first thing I planted was greenbeans.  I put down a row of bluelake 274 and then a row of tendergreen (? name ?).  Then i put in 6 rows of white and yellow sweet corn.  I planted both the corn and beans using the earthway seed planter.  Everything seemed to work OK, but I felt that the corn was not put down at the rate I thought it should have been.  I didn't even use 1/2 lb of seed for those 6 rows!  We will see in a week or so when this comes up.  I might have to overseed more.  Also, because of this I didn't plant any of the pure yellow corn, which Katherine wanted.  After the corn was in I started transplanting the tomatoes - 144 of them!  It was backbreaking to hoe out the rows - but I thought it was the best way after doing the potatoes that way.   So, 4 rows (?) of tomatoes and then my onions (from seed) and then the eggplant were transplanted.  Then I popped in some cucumbers, spaghetti squash, summer squash, and butternut squash in the remaining space.  Not near as many as I did last year!  Also, this year NO pumpkins or sunflowers are going in the patches!  I plan on tilling some rows outside of the big patch, but inside the electric fence for the pumpkins and sunflowers.  That will be next week - weather and time depending.  I really don't need pumpkins or sunflowers - but I want to see how they grow in those conditions.  Local farmers warn that deer LOVE sunflowers - so that is why they will be inside the electric fence.  In any case, after I finished planting the big patch I did some mowing in the far field - the grass grows so fast there!

OK, so next was the paw-paw patch.  I did that the next day to give it more time to dry out.   First I put in Kale in two rows along the paw-paw side of the patch because that seemed to be the best soil. I hand planted the kale seed because I didn't have much seed and I wanted it in as perfect as I could!  Then I transplanted the cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower together (because they were all mixed together and I lost track of which were which).  Then I put in the artichokes partially into the hay mixed soil - we will see!  Some of that soil feels like bricks!  A couple more seasons and much more organics will bring the soil into a good state - its still pretty 'rough' for a garden.  After the artichokes I used the seeder again to plant beets and carrots.  The beets were partially going into the hay mixed soil and the seeder couldn't handle that, therefore, I simply skipped over that soil, planting beets in rows on either side of the hay area.   The carrots went in next.  I forgot were I was and started planting some of the carrots overtop of the Kale!  ARGGG!  I hope I didn't screw things up too bad.  I broadcast dill seed over the hay mixed area since there was really no other way to seed in there.

OK, here are the pictures of the big patch:

Here are some of the paw-paw patch:

See the hay-mix there in the center? What a mess.  Never again.

The hay mix is very visible here.  See the cabbages on
the left?

Rows from the left: 2 Kale, 4 (?) carrot, 4 (broken) beets - dill planted in the straw

Cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower

Here are some pics of the front patch - the onions are doing well - and the potatoes are starting up!

Three rows of potatoes on the left!

closeup of potato

More potatoes sneaking out!

I have not idea what this is - lol, will have to look at the front patch blog post.

Ahh - the onion sets are doing great!

Again, no idea - check front patch blog-entry!