The harvest is coming along here in our little wanna-be homestead. It's coming along slowly right now. We have several Better Boy tomatoes that are in the orange stage. My husband is checking them everyday because he's dying for home grown tomatoes. Our chiles and peppers are nearly ready to be picked, but I'm going to give them a few more weeks to get sweeter. I am harvesting cucumbers like crazy and boy are we loving it! Some people would cringe at the amount of cukes we have, but we are a family of cuke lovers. What we don't eat fresh, I am pickling. Our strawberry production is minimal. I've grown strawberries before and I'm not expecting a huge outcome this year. It will be in the years to come. Pumpkin, watermelon, and cantaloupe are spreading like crazy and we have many, many of them growing. Zucchini is abundant and yellow squash is catching up. Corn is amazing and we planted 3 more rows last week for a late harvest.
I find myself walking into my canning pantry and standing in amazement of all I've canned so far and my thoughts think ahead to what I will begin to can as fall arrives. I've never in my life put this much food by. We used to be buy in bulk people at Costco and so my pantry and freezer were always filled and ready for anything. We still do buy much in bulk. Things I cannot do myself. But doing the bulk creating is new for me. The harvest food preservation count is modest yet, but is as follows:
- 3 quarts of canned oranges (yes, I had to try it, it was a pain in the butt)
- 2 pints canned blueberry/apricot jam
- 2 pints canned strawberry/apricot jam
- 3 pints canned apricot jam (I did have 4, but I gave one to my Dad!)
- 2 pints canned raspberry/apricot jam and 2-1/2 cup jars of the same.
- 7 pints spear pickles
- 5 pints pickle chips
- 1 quart, 5 pints and 4-1/2 cup jars of dill relish
- 8 quarts frozen apricots for eating
- 6 quarts frozen apricots for jamming
- Freeze corn on and off the cob.
- Can salsa
- Can tomatoes
- Can spaghetti sauce (or rather a multi-purpose sauce for spaghetti or pizza)
- Perhaps can pumpkin....I need to check on this first before I decide
- More pickles
- More jam (this winter)
- I am thinking about canning a soup starter too...but I haven't decided yet.
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The above picture is of my canning efforts that year. What a bounty!!
My first garden was a huge success. It was small, but produced a big crop. I had spent the previous winter and spring reading and learning all I could about how to garden. I'd joined several gardening groups on Yahoo (before there were FB groups!). I bought a book on food preservation and taught myself all I could. I was SO PROUD of my garden. In the years to come, I expanded the size of my garden (future posts). But when we moved into this house in 2004, we had a great spot for a future garden and an apricot tree. Later we would have raspberries, apricots, peaches, and more!
I miss my garden a lot. It was beautiful and it was special. I can't even imagine what it looks like now. The people who bought our house before we moved to Oregon were delighted to have a home where they could garden and have chickens. But who knows if they've used it or if it's overgrown. The house we live in how is a rental. The soil is VERY rocky. I made a raised garden bed out of Rubbermaid storage bins and I have 3 hens (did have 4, but a coyote got to her). I have plans to expand my garden, but since this is a rental, I don't have the heart to put so much energy into a garden I can't really take with me. I don't want to plant fruit trees, only to move. So for now, what I have is good.
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