Winding Down the Canning Season.....

I really never stop canning.  I make soups and stews and can dried beans all year round, but the busy canning season is in the summer and it is winding down.

I canned the last of the butternut squash two weekends ago and that rounded out a very bountiful harvest! 

 God has blessed us with such a wonderful garden this year and I have no words to express my thanks.  Pretty much every weekend for the last 6 weeks or so has been devoted to canning all of that largesse!

This is the breakdown of this years bounty.....

• 53 pints salsa  (Most of these tomatoes were bought from our Amish neighbors - 24 lbs for $8)
• 5 pints pizza sauce
• 31 pints sweet corn
• 19 quarts lime pickles
• 19 quarts dill spears
• 2 pints dill spears
• 29 quarts butternut squash
• 2 quarts mixed corn and squash
• 15 quarts tomatoes
• 7 pints sweet relish
• 7 pints bread and butter pickles
• 12 pints zesty bread and butter pickles
• 6 pints mulberry jam
• 9 pints summer squash
• 4 pints pickled beets
• 22 pints green beans
• 57 lbs of red potatoes

Next year we plan to plant a lot more summer squash and only one hill of cucumbers and one hill of butternut squash.  We should have plenty of pickles and butternut squash left over.  If not then we'll revise the plan.  

The garden has been tilled in preparation for the fall crops of kale, turnips, beets (for greens), green onions, and mustard greens.  I've found that beet greens are just about my favorite type of green, so I can't wait for those to come up!

These fellers were oh so happy to get the canning leavings and I'm oh so glad to share with them, as it makes for such delicious pork!  They are getting all the leftovers from canning as well as lots of surplus eggs and milk and as you can see it they are doing well!

In front here is the big gilt, or Peggy Sue as we call her.  She is a BEAUTIFUL hog and I would keep her for breeding, but she'll serve us much better in the freezer.

The little red spotted gilt is Rita Rose.  I actually bought her to use as a breeding sow, but she isn't maturing near as nice as I'd like to see her, so she will go into the freezer as well.  The barrow is in the middle.  He's not as nice as Peggy Sue either, but will make delicious meat nonetheless!

So that's whats going on around here.  Things are good, summer is quickly fading into fall and we are so happy and blessed!

Till next time,

God Bless,

Been Busy!

It's getting to be that time of year again.........the weather is nice, and Goodwife Farm is bustin' at the seams with stuff to do!  Saturday The Man and I hauled some more scrap up out of the ditch.  We got 5 car batteries plus almost 1 ton of scrap metal.  That netted us over $200 cash money which is always nice.  We got 40 bucks for the batteries alone!  Plus we are really making a dent in that ditch full of junk! 

Sunday I had housework to do while The Man mowed the yard.  Then I went out and worked in my herb/flower bed.  It looks MUCH better now!  Sunday evening we were able to plant some garden.

The Man is running down with the tiller once more, while The Youngun is on her board swing, waiting to start plantin'!

Here I am cutting up the seed potatoes.  Ellie is helping me.  Today I'm canning up what is left of the potatoes after cutting off a nice piece with an eye to plant.  I haven't canned potatoes before but I'm hoping they turn out well.  I don't have a cellar so I have no good place to store my potatoes.  If they turn out good, I'll just keep my dug taters in the garage and use them as usual.  Then when it gets close to winter, I'll can up what's left.

The taters are ready to go in the ground!

Daddy and The Youngun markin' off the row with our handy dandy redneck row marker...........a broken fishing pole with a stick tied to the line.  You shove the stick down in the ground at one end, then at the other end you shove the broken part of the pole in the ground with the handle sticking up.  Then you just crank the reel to tighten your guide line!  The Man is a genius like that.........

Me plantin' taters......once again Ellie is helping me.  Wherever the Goodwife is, Ellie is never far behind!

The Youngun and The Man then strawed the taters good and we went on to plantin' corn.  In the above picture, I'm covering up the corn, ever so gently tucking it in to rest until it pokes it's head out of our rich garden soil!  We planted three rows of taters, 5 rows of sweet corn, beets, some radishes, some onions, spinach, romaine, black seeded simpson, and three rows of carrots.  The good weather is supposed to last so we will be planting Roma II beans, cucumbers, and white patty pan squash next weekend and probably setting out our tomatoes and peppers the following weekend.  I actually planted my 18 remaining tomato plants yesterday.  I figured as bad as they look, getting them in the ground isn't going to hurt them any!  If it's supposed to get cold, I'll go cover them up.  

Here's hoping you had a fabulous weekend wherever you may be!  Till next time.........God Bless!