Saturday, August 8, 2015

Farm Update

Corn ready to process
We had visitors at our farm stay yesterday so I didn't have a chance to post a "Farm Friday." This past week has been a time of experimenting, learning, and preparing for the winter season. Last Sunday afternoon I:

  • blanched and froze several cups of green beans
  • prepped some of the green beans and put them in jars to ferment
  • made a sweet and savory tomato jam and water bath canned it
  • prepped the remaining onions
  • chopped and froze some of the onions
  • rescued some of our cabbage and made a vegetarian cabbage lasagna

Later in the week I failed at canning some tomatoes but it was a good learning experience. I ended up buying some new jars and lids, then borrowing my mother-in-law's water bath canner. Next week I'll be putting up some tomatoes, marinara sauce, and salsa. Looking forward to having those during the winter.

I did a quick inventory of what we had in the freezer and I've been using it up or feeding it to the animals. It's hard to determine how much of each food we'll eat in the off season. Having farm animals helps me feel like nothing goes to waste around here.

On Tuesday, Bill discovered that the raccoons were getting into our corn. That was the bad news; the good news was that it was ready to pick so we had corn day a few days earlier than planned. Bill picked and shucked it and I removed the corn silks, then blanched and froze it. 

We had a great day at the market today and, after some rest and recuperation, I made ratatouille from some leftover produce. I also started prepping sweet potatoes to chop and freeze.

Have a great week!

1 comment:

David said...

Cherie, sounds like you had a real productive week. Mine was spent still building fence. The last three eight foot panels have to be built from scratch by busting apart pallets and putting the slats on the wooden fence rails one at a time. I'm determined to get this fence completed even if the rest of the garden suffers a little bit. It's time to keep those pesky deer out of my garden area. It's very disappointing to see just how fast they can destroy a functioning garden. Defeating the raccoon population will be on the agenda next year.

Have a great harvesting and preserving day.