Let’s Pretend – Part Two

So, as I said in my previous post, I came back from Georgia mid June and hit the garden and the canning hard.  I love gardening and canning but, it’s hard! There’s very little downtime.  But, it is so worth it in the end!

The garden did great in some areas and lacked in others.  First off, the tarp did a wonderful job at keeping the weeds at bay and the watering system did a great job.

We built three raised beds as well.  I planted peppers, lettuce and kale in them.  They worked well but, I believe the peppers needed more room. This year I will plant onions in one and we already have garlic planted in the other.      One of the raised beds is built near the cabin.  This year I will plant some herbs, lettuce and kale in it.  That way it’s one easy step to go harvest fresh, and then, to the table.

Lima beans came up in a huge way but yet, no beans. Cucumbers did well but, not as good as they have done in the past.  Tomatillos were marginal. And, this year our serrano peppers were hurting.  Honestly, everything was just too crowded.  We will retest soil and spread things out more.   Potatoes and sweet potatoes did “OK”.  The plants appeared very healthy but by harvest we pulled a lot, but most were very small.   Sweet potatoes were huge.  Like too huge to do anything with but mash. Corn did well.  In the past we could never get any to grow.  Progress! Onions, for whatever reason, we still struggle to get them to grow.  We are hoping a raised bed will help.

What we did well in was summer squash, zucchini, watermelon and pumpkins!  It got to the point where I was scared to go harvest because of how many squash I might come back with! The tomatoes and radishes did wonderful, too. Check out the pumpkins and watermelons!

We had so many watermelons we are attempting to make watermelon wine! We filled four of these jars.  We shall see!!

Al’s tobacco did very well. They are dried!  He just needs to get them rolled!

All in all we were pleased with and grateful for our harvest.

So, again, we are still learning.  This year we will only plant the things we love and will actually eat.  NO MORE SUMMER SQUASH. We ended up freeze drying most of the squash we harvested so, it will last forever. The winter squash did well. First attempt at sugar pumpkins and I was not disappointed.  You cannot can them because of their thickness so, I pureed them.  I freeze dried some and put some in the freezer. Other new canned goods were raspberry jam (yes!  We found some on the property!) , salsa verde, using our own tomatillos, cream style corn, watermelon jelly and jam, spaghetti sauce and Christmas peppers.

All in all I canned 464 jars beating last years total of 438!  Whew!  Can you say tired?

The root cellar needs to happen and NOW!

As always, thanks for reading.

XO.

Elisa