Vegetable harvest - more fruit

Green beans

Well, that bean patch had some issues this year, no the least of which is that it was a stream bed for a good portion of the growing season.  Also, there were a couple of varmints, I suspect a groundhog and definitely saw a rabbit munching on the green beans!   It was interesting to note that neither varmints seemed to go for the pinto beans - just the green beans.  Also, because the rains kept the ground too wet to get into how, the weeds pretty much took over!  This weekend I went in to pick and had to de-weed the beans to find them!  The yield was quite poor.  No surprises there.  About 2 quarts.  We just cooked them up and had them for dinners during the week.

Green beans piled on some cornbread for dinner!

Canned more peaches


I picked some more peaches.  Most of these were yellow peaches this time.  I have 4 trees that produce yellow peaches (of 2 different varieties).  I canned 8 pints of these.

I should point out that I used the new type of canner that Katherine bought.  It's actually quite useful in that it frees up the stove for canning prep work.

Strawberries and Blackberries

Strawberry harvest continues.  I froze some and used some for more fruit leather.  Also started picking the blackberries.  Seems we missed the start of the blackberry season by a week or so.  Just so busy with the elderberries!

Elderberry harvest continues

Not much to add here.  Just processing away!  This actually takes most of our time during the weekend due to the fact that we having to manually pick these little berries off the stems!

We have determined that if we pick this contained to heaping full that it produces about enough for 5-6 quarts of canned juice.  Also, if you have the option, do not pick more than you can destem in one day.  Working full day we can do about 10-12 quarts of  canned juice (two of the above containers worth of pickings)

Beans, strawberries, apples. First elderberry picking!

English walnut - I have one!

According to the internet English walnuts shouldn't product until their 6th year.  I planted these 2 year old trees 2 years ago - so they are only 4, but I found a nut on one of them!  Cool.

I have never seen a "real" english walnut - this will be new for me.

Cabbages, broccoli, and eggplants...

Not sure how the eggplants got in there though!  I am wondering if they got the seeds mixed up?

I wasn't able to tell which plant was which when I planted them but I lucked out and planted mostly cabbages!

Corn is growing fast too

Eggplant is actually doing well.

Cabbages are doing nicely.  I have been keeping up on the sevin

Strawberries

The ever-bearing strawberries kicked in again.  We didn't get a huge amount - maybe half-gallon at most.  We have just been eating these - no processing.

This is all of the berries that we brought back this weekend.  We did eat some there though.  Notice the bramble berries?  They are coming in too!

Blueberries

The few that are on are getting ripe.  We picked a couple handfuls for eating.  More to come.

Those radishes should be harvested soon probably

Bean patch

I was finally able to get into the bean patch to run the hoe.  Its just been so wet I didn't dare get in there before now.

Greenbeans are blooming

Pinto beans are a bit sparse.  I didn't plant seed beans - just dried beans from the market.  Also, I didn't count on a river running through this patch!

The patch actually looks ok from this angle!

The "green-beans" (velour? accelerate?) are on the right - they are planted in rows that are closer together.  

First of the elderberries this season!  

Some of the elderberry plants are diseased or dying for some other reason, so I picked the berries off of them (since they ripen earlier when that happens).  I didn't think I had that many - but after I picked them I found it made quite a pile!

We took these back to the city and de-stemmed and processed them for the freeze-dryer.  They are still drying as I type this.

First apples of the season!

The pristine apples had enough ripe to pick this weekend.  I got about 15 of them I think.  I ate a couple, gave Tom one and brought a bunch into work to share (and eat).

They are a tangy apple - but juicy and sweet as well.  Best early apple that I know of.

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!