Baby B thinks Beets are the Best!

one of our more successful and popular crops this year was beets. as in Detroit dark red beets.


they were popular with the customers- both as beet greens and baby beets.


but most of all the beets were adored by B. she loves beets. LOVES. BEETS.

the first time i took her out to the garden to help me harvest beets, she had a great time. the look of wonder on her face when she pulled her first beet out of the ground is a look I'll never forget.

more amazingly, she had that same look of amazement every time she pulled out another beet. every. single. time.

we made a few quarts and pints of pickled beets for the winter, but B couldn't wait. she wanted a bowlful of buttered beets right away.




most people in our family don't like pickled beets, but rather the pickled eggs that traditionally go with them.

however, i think i should have done some more pickling of our produce this year. just yesterday B ate a whole pint of kosher dill spears- nearly single handedly!

next year i guess i should plan on planting more beets and cukes!

preserving the summer's goodness ~ one jar at a time!

a few weeks ago i was blessed to have all 3 of my daughters help make pickles.

the little girls were happy to stuff the jars with the pickle slices that M and i cut for them.

while the jars were not stuffed as tightly as i could have done myself, the girls are learning what it is to can and preserve our summer's bounty for the winter.

and that's certainly more important than having prizewinning pickles!

I'm picking and picking, and canning and canning, and freezing and freezing, and still we can't keep up!

you'd think with 7 CSA boxes weekly, 4 pigs and numerous canning/freezing days a week we'd be able to keep up better.

but no.

so off to the hot kitchen i go again!

it's a wild and crazy ride, so hang on tight! (and don't forget to buckle your seatbelt!)

...just popping in for a moment to say "I'm still here! and hanging on for dear life!"

despite the total lack of rain for the third week straight, our garden is producing. i think that i can safely say that we've reached the point of relentlessness !

this morning alone, i picked a 5 gallon bucket of cucumbers. i thought that the cukes were pretty much petered out and done, but i guess after the thorough soaking that we gave them Saturday night and last night, they've made a miraculous comeback.

since today's agenda was already full with 3+ bushels of peaches, and 150 ears of corn, I'm not sure where we'll squeeze in the cucumbers. (and that's not counting the yellow beans that are ready to pick today!)

but squeeze we must, and squeeze we will. old man winter will be here far sooner than we think, if the speed with which this summer is galloping by is any indication.

wasn't it just last week that we were marveling that it was May first already?

we've been steadily harvesting, selling, canning, sharing and freezing our bounteous produce. what a satisfying feeling to see all the colorful jars lined up like soldiers on the cellar shelves!

I've updated the puttin' stuff up list on the sidebar.

I'll try to stop in again soon- i have some posts ready to go, including our latest chicken butchering escapade.

gasp! she lives... and writes!

so much has happened, i don't even know where to start!

our garden is definitely doing much better this year, and that leaves me with just about zero time to write.

I'll jot off a rambley list, and hopefully get back later to post some pictures. (even though I've not been blogging, i have been taking pictures. sort of.)

* we butchered 75 chickens last week, and although it nearly killed me, our freezers are full with the best chicken meat you've ever eaten.

* we just sent the last 2 winter pigs to the butcher. despite not having them sold when i dropped them off, at the last minute many buyers came out of the woodwork, prompting Dave to consider building another pig tractor. with the restaurant food that we give them, and the pasturing, the pigs are a much needed cash inflow in our little operation.

* the garden is producing, and is gearing up to producing relentlessly! potatoes, some tomatoes, zucchini, yellow summer squash, egg plant, onions, green beans, yellow beans, carrots, beets, rosemary, basil, cilantro, red cabbage, green cabbage, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, cherry bomb hot peppers, Anaheim peppers, cucumbers, sweet green peppers...

* beets are a popular item; both for my CSA boxes and farmers' market

* red cabbage is not.

* this year's tally for garden pests that dave has "dispatched" is: 10 woodchucks, 2 skunks and 1 rabbit. (the skunk G found right out the back door last week, sitting placidly (and stuck) in the pig bucket.)

* i started a running tally of the things we're freezing and canning for the winter. although it's a bit late in getting posted, it's up-to-date as of right now.

* even though I'm not a morning person, i much prefer to get up at the crack-'o-dawn and do my garden work then. I'm often back in the house before 11am, and will go out again after dinner.

* we're very thankful for the water pump that i bought, as well as the creek nearby. we've been using the creek to irrigate the garden, without which we'd have no garden.

* i have 5 (!) families for my CSA. it's encouraging. and only a little stressful. we're learning so much this year, and hope to expand to even more families next year.

* I'm a produce vendor at the local farmer's market. last Friday was the first time, and it went well. things we learned from last week: people like beets, red potatoes, red peppers and small potatoes.

* quilting classes are still in full swing at the local Ben Franklin, and I'm able to squeeze in some time for quilting. i could almost call myself the quilting gardener.

or maybe the gardening quilter?

happy hunting grounds!

yesterday was the first day of rifle (shotgun?) deer hunting season. Dave was eager and ready to go out hunting. he has a tree stand right down below the lower garden. while the kids and i left for Harrisburg to meet the bus back to BJU, Dave was off hunting in the rain.

and after several (many?) years of not getting any deer at all~ sometimes not even seeing a deer all day~ he got 2 deer: a doe and a button buck, and was back up in the house by 8AM! now that's what i call efficiency!

the girls were up, and Dave got them dressed and took them down into the woods to "help" gut the deer. they were very excited for their daddy, and were happy to pose for some pictures~ my two little rednecks!


the doe was much larger then the other. the button buck was probably this year's fawn. ( i made Dave some tenderloin steak for lunch, and it was definitely tender!) i cut all 4 loins out of the deer and made them into steaks.



the remainder of the deer meat we cut off of the bone. i canned 14 quarts of venison for stew, and the rest we made into burger, using our brand new meat grinder, a 1HP Sam Baer. we ran the meat through the grinder twice- the first time using the 3/8" blade,

the second time we used the 1/4" blade. the meat grinder did a really nice (and quick) job, and had no problem handling the bigger pieces of meat.

deer meat is really easy to can, and I've heard that it tastes very tender. we just cubed the meat into about 1" chunks. i heated the meat, so it wasn't going in the pressure cooker cold. after washing my jars and sterilizing the lids, i hot packed the meat into the jars. i added 1 teaspoon salt, and filled the jars to the shoulder. i added hot broth, and ran a wooden spatula around the jars to get out all the air bubbles. then i pressure cooked them at 10lb. for 1 ½ hours. since i have 2 pressure cookers, it was pretty painless, and relatively fast.

thankfully i had some freezer wrap on hand, and it was almost enough to do the 16 1½ pound burger packages that we got.

with the 14 jars of stew venison, the 16 packages of ground meat and the 3 packages of tenderloin that i froze, we have 33 meals that the family can eat!

I'm sure pleased about that!

and no, i don't feel guilty for eating Bambi. remember how much of my garden he and his mamma ate this year? sunflowers, beans, summer squash, beets, carrots, winter squash and sweet potatoes.

so the way i figure it, we're even.

but just barely!

spreading the love...

last week i finally managed to get the 5 bushels of apples on our front porch canned for the winter. usually we put up as many as 10 bushels, often trying to get that done in one crazy long day of canning.

but that was back in the days of having 4 helpers. this year it was just G and i, and i procrastinated for longer than usual, feeling rather trepiditious about tackling that many apples with just one helper.

i must be getting wimpy in my old age!

anyway...

i just wanted to share with you the recipes that we use to preserve our apples for winter- applesauce (of course), apple butter and new to this year's line up: apple pie filling.

Gramma Jean's Applesauce

(makes 13 quarts)

Add to your finished applesauce:

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup honey

1 t. salt

4 t. cinnamon

1 t. nutmeg

½ t. cloves

if very bland can add 1 T lemon juice

mix together, and hot water bath quarts 20 minutes

Apple Butter

5 quarts prepared PLAIN applesauce

10 cups sugar

1 cup vinegar

2 t. cinnamon

1 t. cloves

combine and mix well in crock pot. cook on low until thickened to desired consistency. stir regularly. ( i cooked mine for a long time; the butter reduced to 7 pints!) hot water bath pints 10 minutes.

Dave and the girls like this on their morning toast. it's the new favorite.

Apple Pie Filling

8 quarts sliced apples (do not use a soft apple!)

3 ½ cups cold water

14 T cornstarch

5 ½ cups sugar (not so much if apples are sweet)

4 t. cinnamon

7 t. lemon juice

1½ t. nutmeg

mix all but apples, and bring to a boil; gently add apples and fold together. pack into jars and hot water bath 20 minutes for quarts.

this recipe is fairly easy (it just takes forever to slice all those apples yourself!) and it makes the task of making apple pie super easy! i bought some pie crusts on sale (for shame!) and making a fresh apple pie for dessert is not a hassle at all.

crumb topping

½ cup flour

½ cup sugar

½ cup finely chopped walnuts

1 stick butter

combine and sprinkle over the pie before baking

finally, with the completion of apple preservation i can finally say that I'm done canning and preserving for this year! after i make sure that my kitchen notebook is accurate, I'll be removing the putting stuff up list from my side bar.

it's been a long and busy season, and we're thankful for the abundance of fruits and vegetables that God has provided! we'll be eating well all winter long~ and we have lots of extra to share with friends!

whatever happened to that sporadic blogger, anyway?

i figured since I'm starting to get e-mails, phone calls and other frantic inquiries from people that i know in real life, i better at least post something up here, so my hundreds of faithful readers MIL won't wonder if I'm sick or dead.

ever since M and N went to college and G started school again, I've lost a bunch of people to boss around help out, it seems as if I'm too busy to post about my exciting life.

but- i haven't forgotten about all of you, my dear and faithful readers, and i have a few posts up my sleeve that I'd like to share with you.

soon.

but until then- here's a sneak preview of coming attractions:

* the final Livestock and Garden Report for 2009

* chores and the getting of them done (happily)

* my first ever giveaway!

* a quilting tutorial

* another quilting tutorial

* more pictures from our trip to SC

* general profound ramblings about evangelical Anabaptists

* another giveaway that i'll be participating in at weareTHATfamily

* a new feature of my blog: QUILT gallery

so- since nap time is officially over, and can not be stretched out any longer (and believe me, I've tried!) i need to get off the computer.

but I'll try to be back soon.

promise!

galloping just to stay behind!

would you be shocked if i told you that we've been a little busy around here? i know you might be, because I've never said that before!

so kidding.

it seems as if it has truly been busier than normal around here, with a plethora of things to do~ and that's just the list for the AM!

we did 350+ ears of corn on Monday, and with all of us working at it, we were done by lunch time. (which was good, considering that we still had 3 bushels of tomatoes to do up into spaghetti sauce!)
every one had corn for breakfast. and dinner.


we were able to borrow a turkey fryer, and we did the corn outside. not so starchy and sticky for the new kitchen= Happy family.


everyone helped- whether it was with husking, blanching, cutting the kernels off the cob, freezer bagging, cleaning up or washing the dishes. it's a ton of work, and we only have a little over half the corn we need, but i did want to get the bulk of the corn done before the kids left for college. (on Friday!!!)


after lunch we did the "divide and conquer" game plan, with some of us finishing up the corn, and others washing and cooking tomatoes, ready for the squeezo. in spite of the fact that the kitchen stove did its level best to either die or blow up, (or both!) we managed to churn out 40+ quarts of spaghetti sauce. and perhaps even more amazing, they were all our own tomatoes, wrested from the evil and determined clutches of the tomato blight! additionally, both the peppers and onions that we used for the spaghetti sauce were also grown in our very own garden. as were the herbs. but I'll stop bragging now.

then, as if there wasn't enough going on this week, we just butchered 11 of the buff orpington roosters. because 12 roosters is clearly too many.

clearly.


add to that freezing green peppers and the occasional mess of green beans, and i would say that everyone should just be happy with clean underwear.

babies

bowls

blueberries

Thursday's Livestock and Garden Report ~ Week 21

it's been a busy week, with the garden finally starting to produce. i can brag about an impressive list of veggies that we've been harvesting: onions, peppers, summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, beans and of course the old stand by, potatoes.

we've picked green beans several times this week, being diligent to stay current on the picking. the beans are of course much better that way. when the green beans/ground cover ripens in the UG, there will be tones of beans! probably way too many~ but we'll just sell the extra, and feed the extra of the extra to the pigs.

the ducks have fallen out of favor this week. although we enjoy watching them wander through the yard and play in the puddle, they did a very naughty thing. (as A would say!) i had planted my second crop of peas, counting on the cooler weather and delayed frost to harvest my own instead of buying. they (the peas) were coming up nicely, and all 6 of the double rows were about 3" high. one afternoon soon after i let them out, the ducks were observed eating straight down the rows of tender pea shoots! they were quite happy, wiggling their tail and muttering among themselves. almost as if they were saying thank-you! thank you for planting a row for each of us. thank you for putting them in such a neat and straight line. grrrr! well, fortunately for me and my family, the local grocery store had a sale on this week: Bird's Eye peas ~ 1 pound, 1 dollar. so my freezer is stocked with peas, and since that's what i set about to do, i guess i don't have much to complain about.

it was a rough week for the meat birds, too. we lost 13 or so, which was quite a blow. it's a combination of heat, water, crowding and stupidity. (of the birds, i mean!) that just reinforces to Dave and i that we need to take a much more active role in supervising the livestock and instructing in proper care. but we can console ourselves with a pithy little nugget that a farmer friend shared with me after church on Sunday: "if you have livestock, you're going to have deadstock." how true, how true...

we are harvesting tomatoes, although the plants are quickly dying off. they look really terrible in the garden, but as long as I'm getting some tomatoes, I'll let them suffer through. we've been eating fresh garden salsa and i even made some spaghetti sauce. I'll be able to make many more quarts of sauce, just not in the big quantities that i prefer.

N, G, A and B helped me transplant, mulch and water all the cauliflower and broccoli that we put into the high tunnel. I'm holding out hope that we'll be able to harvest these veggies, too! (we will not put the new plastic on the high tunnel until it gets much cooler, as the cauliflower and broccoli prefers the cool weather.)

this week we purchased 8 of the big round bales of hay for mulch. today G and Dave were working at spreading a layer of hay over the parts of the LG that are done. the LG is pretty much done producing, but alot of the potatoes are still in the ground, so of course we can't mulch there yet. the plan with the hay is to improve the soil for next year. some portions of the LG have had 2 rounds of buckwheat, and now the hay. hopefully next year we will see an improvement in the soil fertility.

which leads me to think that maybe, just maybe, we can work our way up to being a CSA, providing food for 10-12 other families besides ourselves. somewhere between Dave's pessimism and my optimism lies the reality. as we continue to work together to improve our little spot of soil, we learn and grow together. we've been inspired by this blog this week, and keep thinking, maybe we can do this after all! (and we cant' whine about living in zone 5, because they do, too!)

I'll leave you with a few recipes, so you can enjoy your own garden's bounty!

Spaghetti Sauce

½ bushel tomatoes (roma is best)

3 lb. onions

4 red peppers

2 green peppers

1 stalk celery

1-2 T parsley

2 T sweet basil

2 T oregano

1 ½ c. sugar

process tomatoes. (wash, cut out bad spots, boil and run through the squeezo) put onions, peppers and celery through food processor. combine with tomatoes and sugar and bring to gentle boil on stove. BE CAREFUL not to over boil, or your sauce will get dark and bitter. (don't ask me how i know this, just trust me.) if you're using dried herbs, you can add them at the beginning, but wait until the end if you're using fresh.

prep your jars and lids, and have your hot water canner already boiling. into each quart jar add 1 T lemon juice. hot water bath 30 minutes.

(this sauce is thinner than the store bought that has all sorts of nasty thickening chemicals added to it, but i often add 1 can of tomato paste, especially when I'm making spaghetti)

Garden Fresh Salsa

chop up a bunch of tomatoes. (about 2 cups) if you're using beef steak toms, squeeze out some of the juicy stuff in the middle. salt semi-generously, and set aside.

now cut up equal amounts of green peppers, purple onions, cucumbers and even summer squash if you're feeling particularly brave (or healthy)

drain the tomatoes and combine all the chopped veggies. add lime juice and chopped fresh cilantro. serve immediately with tortilla chips. yummy!

Thursday's Livestock and Garden Report ~ Week 20

Glory Be and hallelujah! my garden is finally starting to produce something other than potatoes!

my very optimistic late planting of summer squash is flowering! and look: there's even a baby squash gestating. we're doing a little happy dance up and down the garden rows!

the onion sets from Gurney's are done growing, and this week G and the little girls helped me pull them. we got about a bushel.

some were very small; hardly bigger than when we planted them back in April. makes me wonder what they've been doing with themselves these last 4 months!

we ordered and planted 6 bunches. hopefully next year we will have better fixed the fertility issues in the lower garden. I'll still plant more onions next year, but this is a good start!

the potatoes are growing like gangbusters! these are some big ones that i pulled out to show off, but i should have put something (like a coffee mug) next to them to show how big they really are. the biggest one on the right is bigger than 2 fists!

we dig fresh potatoes pretty regularly, and pack them in bags that i make from our multitude of feed sacks. 10lb. for $5.

the produce stand is bringing in some small, but steady income. red Pontiac potatoes definitely seem to be the favorite, so next year i plan on planting more than 50 pounds of that variety.

the honour system works pretty well in our rural county, and we've not had too many issues with stolen potatoes. (with the exception of one day last week when someone took 20 pounds of potatoes and left me 29 cents!)

the peppers are doing nicely as well. dare i say that we're being inundated with fresh produce?

the 5 ducks are quite happy. (the 6th died unexpectedly a few weeks back) every afternoon we let them out to free range, and they are quite comical to watch as they waddle (all in a row) where ever they go.

the morning glories right outside the back door have finally grown taller than the cherry tomatoes (it was a neck-and-neck race for the sunlight) and are cheerily blooming every morning.

A is quite proud of these sunflowers that she planted with the nasturtiums.

the chipmunks planted all the rest of the sunflowers. all over the flower gardens there are little sunflowers randomly and eclectically coming up. the goldfinches are enjoying them, and we like to see the diversity of birds that comes for a snack.

the cherry tomatoes are almost prolific~ A and B really like to go out to see if any are ready, and beg for someone to pick them a fresh 'mater. i really like having the cherry tomatoes right outside the back door, and plan on putting them there again next year. once they start producing, it's really hard to keep up with them. having the plants in such a convenient spot makes that task almost effortless.

we're getting a few tomatoes from the upper garden as well. it's really a horrible year for tomatoes, so the yield is disappointing.

again, A and B enjoy eating a fresh tomato just like you would an apple. (all my kids have done that)

the tomato plants themselves look horrible. they are all brown and dead from the bottom up, and the Florida staking system fell over after a recent heavy rain. we were busy cooking for the roofers, and i never got out to fix it.

that being said, i really like the Florida staking system and plan on using it again next year, just implementing the things that i learned from experience this year: taller and stronger stakes.

the broccoli and cauliflower in the cold frame is doing very well, and i plan on transplanting the seedlings to the high tunnel in the next few days.

due to the tomato blight, the tomatoes in the high tunnel were a total flop this year. nevertheless, we plan on trying again next year, applying the things that we learned: only 2 rows of tomatoes, plant indeterminate and train them up string, or longer and stronger stakes for the Florida staking. I'd also like to grow some cherry tomatoes in hanging pots, to better utilize the upper space.

our second planting/cover crop of beans is growing nicely. (lots of "growing nicely" in this post! but then again, it's about time for some good news!)

these are the beans that i planted around the tomato cages. they are training themselves right up, and are even taller than i am now. i really like having them on the tomato cages, and plan on doing that again next year, as well. (i thought up that idea myself, and I'm quite proud of it!)

these are the cover crop beans, and even though they are pole beans, i don't plan on staking them. they'll just have to produce despite the benign neglect, or just be tilled under!

look closely- you'll see the baby beans! Dave "took care" of the groundhog problem in the upper garden, so these beans actually had a chance to do their beany thing!


and look~ real, live beans! from our very own garden! we'll have some for lunch, and I'll freeze some, too. there should be another picking in a few days.

we still have lettuce, too. since it's been such a cool summer, that has extended far longer than we thought it would. i have the 4th planting in the second cold frame, and this time planted spinach, too.

we planted 10 pounds of onion sets, and while most of them did not get exceedingly big, they made a respectable showing.

next year I'll definitely plant more purple onions, maybe as much as 7+ pounds. i like to use them in recipes, just for the extra color.

the beets were a disappointment, but that was for several reasons. the lower garden is not very fertile, and compound that with the fact that i could just not bring myself to thin out the beets, (it feels so wasteful!) they did not get very big.

before bringing the beets to the house, we stopped off at the pigs and gave them the too small beets, as well as the tops of the beets we were canning.

we managed to eke out 12 pints of pickled beets. not too bad, considering that i don't' even like pickled beets! (the jar that i entered in the county fair won second place!)

I'll end this lengthy post with my recipe for pickled beets- just in case you want to preserve some of your own summer bounty to dislike on a cold winters day!

Pickled Beets

harvest whatever beets you've managed to grow and that haven't been eaten by the deer, woodchucks or rabbits. top them all, and scrub clean. put beets in large pot, covering with water. boil until tender. drain, reserving beet juice. cut off tops and root tap, and slip off skins. pack hot into pint jars. cover with pickled juice.

pickled juice:

2 cups sugar

2 sticks cinnamon

1 T whole allspice

3 ½ cups vinegar

1 ½ water ( use your drained beet juice)

simmer this for 15 minutes, and then ladle over your beets in jar, leaving 1/4" head space. remove air bubbles. process pints (and quarts) 30 minutes in boiling water canner.