Tag: grow your own

A Season of Harvest in Pictures

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

December 2 is definitely the latest we have ever harvested anything, but last night, Ron pulled the last of the carrots from the ground. They were so delicious. We learned to always let your carrots stay in the ground until after the first few frosts. The frost does good things to the sugars in the carrots, and the taste is so sweet.

It seems like forever ago that we started this whole process, and I was so tired this summer and fall from the long COVID that I didn’t post as many pictures as I normally do. With that in mind, I decided to go through all of my photos from the summer and fall and show you what we do around here–and how we eat. There are so many more things to share, but I think this gives you a pretty good idea.

Harvest starts in May, and this year, well, it went until December. Both last night and tonight, we had carrots with dinner. They were magnificent.

It always starts with the rhubarb. I make rhubarb cakes, muffins, and jelly. I didn’t even get to share a single jar of this jelly. I made five jars, and Ron had eaten it all within two weeks. I have to make more next year, but rhubarb jelly is a bit more labor intensive–at least if you want pink. Our rhubarb is not super pink, so I have had to learn some strategies for picking and processing to get more of the pink color.
The first greens! And that’s Saint Saens in the background. That sweet girl will be seven this spring. She really loves the greens. I did share some after this photo.
The green beans did pretty well this year, and we froze a record number of quarts. I have not yet been brave enough to try to can them, but I must try next summer. Also, our neighbor gave us several old harvest baskets years ago, and we use those things all the time. I would love to get a few more.
One of my favorite meals every summer is the organic ramen. When the cabbage and onions are ready (usually we have carrots at this time too, but they were late), I boil duck eggs and warm up some organic ramen. It’s a quick, easy dinner–and it’s pretty!
These were the first raspberries of the season!
Ron planted purple cauliflower this year. I mean, just look at that!
We always have a couple of months between running out of potatoes from last year and the new potatoes of the current year coming to harvest. Every year, when we eat the potatoes, those first meals are so precious to me. I don’t buy potatoes. I just wait until the next crop is ready. It really makes you appreciate good potatoes.
When the blueberries are ripe, I am so excited to put them in oatmeal in the mornings. We all love oatmeal with blueberries around here. This year, the birds ate almost all of our blueberries, so Ron and I spent two days picking at a local farm that has really good prices for beautiful berries. We stocked up and still have gallons of frozen blueberries that we will eat all winter. This summer, on one hot and miserable day of picking (the heat makes long COVID symptoms worse), I said to Ron, “We are the ants, aren’t we?” He agreed that we are, indeed, the ants.
I just had to share this sunflower because neither Ron nor myself planted it. A bird or a squirrel planted it in a flower pot on our deck, and I treasured it. So did this awesome bumble bee.
We had melons this year! They were fantastic! When Ron first tried to grow melons about 10 years ago, it wasn’t hot enough. The Maine summers are plenty hot now.
It was a banner year for tomatoes, and we put up a record number of jars of pizza and spaghetti sauce. This is some of the pizza sauce. Each one of these jars contains enough sauce for two pizzas. We use the tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic from the garden to make this sauce. It is slow food that is just so good.
We eat pizzas all fall using vegetables from the garden. This one has onions, peppers, and tomatoes from the garden, and, of course, we make the sauce from the garden too.
Ron chose a hybrid corn this year, so I couldn’t seed save; it was so good it was worth it though. It was a really good year for the corn.
I love apple season. We do not grow our own apples, but we found a local apple orchard with very good prices for pick-your-own, and drops are crazy cheap–and still so good. We load up on apples every fall. We always freeze many gallons of apples, but this year, I started putting up applesauce in jars. I put up eight large jars. They are already gone. My teen son stays up late and, apparently, ate a lot of applesauce this year. I would wake up every other morning or so and find another jar had been opened. Truly, there is nothing like homemade applesauce, right?
Right around apple time is also grape time. We have our own grape vines, and Ron built a beautiful arbor for them this fall. However, we have no grapes yet. Thankfully, I have the kindest neighbor who always shares her grapes with me, and I always make grape jelly. Homemade grape jelly is nothing like the store grape jelly. It’s so tart and so yummy!
Ron plants a fall round of greens each year, so we can have greens when the tomatoes are ripe. This beautiful salad as greens, beets, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes from the garden–and walnuts and dried cranberries from the grocery store.
Our pear trees had a good year. I canned 15 large jars of pears from our trees. We planted two more pear trees this spring, but only one really started to take off. Aren’t pears so beautiful?
I love cranberry beans. A few years ago, we had a bumper crop and haven’t grown any in several years. But Ron planted some this year in his Three Sisters garden, and they are so beautiful. I was glad they were back this year.
We always plant three varieties of carrots–Yellowstone, Scarlet Nantes, and Oxhearts. These are the Oxhearts, and they are great for rocky soils like we have here in Maine.

Food System

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Warning: This post includes a brief discussion of processing chickens for food.

This morning, we began processing our last batch of meat chickens for the year. We normally do one batch for our family and one batch for our dogs, but we did three batches this year because our Pyrenees, Bairre, has decided he really only likes to eat chicken for dinner. We can either buy meat from the food system where we know the animals are abused or humanely raise and process the chickens ourselves for our dogs to eat. We choose the latter.

And, when I say “we” process these chickens, I mean mostly Ron. I am just the assistant. Ron humanely culls, cleans most of the feathers, and then cleans the insides. It is my job to then get the chicken looking like one from the grocery store, so, when cooked with vegetables from our garden, our family just sees a beautiful chicken dinner as the end result.

I get the final feathers and hairs, clean the chicken super thoroughly, and process the internal organs for the dogs. We try to avoid waste. After all, a life was given for that food. Waste seems sacrilegious.

Even with my assistant job, I get so worn. I am up and down our stairs a lot, as we keep the chickens in the basement, and I spent a lot of hours leaned over our deep sink. It feels worth it though when I think about the alternative. The “humanely raised” is really important to me, but food safety is becoming more and more an issue.

Recently, it feels more and more important that we choose to live this way.. I have known for a long time that our American food system is in some trouble, but the recent listeria and E. coli outbreaks remind me of how important it is to build our own food system–at least as much as we can. The FDA and the USDA both regulate our food systems here in the United States, but they apparently do not communicate well and are also quite backed up and overworked. On top of these issues, apparently, some states, specifically I read about Texas, have simply quit complying with some required testing from the USDA. This was related to the bird flu, but who knows what else states or companies will decide to not comply with. It’s already quit a bit. Self regulation is not a great plan, at least if experience has taught us anything.

We also have a lot of inexperience and arrogance heading into our government, and in my other life working as an academic administrator who worked with federal agencies to secure grants, inexperience and arrogance are not a great combination when it comes to dealing with the giant bureaucracy that is government.

Yeah, I have some worries. I think we had better start working hard to get our food from a more local system.

I know it’s not possible for everyone who reads this to start raising meat chickens, but it seems important to start trying to remove ourselves from a broken food system in whatever ways we can. Maybe we get chickens for eggs and compost their poop to fertilize our organic vegetable garden. Maybe we connect with local farmers and join a CSA. Maybe we support any local markets that keep their supply chains local. I don’t know how common those are in other states, but we have a lot of them here in Maine. Maybe we work harder to create low-ingredient homes, cutting down on or eliminating processed foods (more on that later).

Pay attention. Wash your food well. Organic carrots were a recent culprit for E. coli. Cook your meats thoroughly. Make sure they reach the proper temps.

I wish I had more answers, but I do think we are on our own more than I feel comfortable with. I’ll always share what I learn to help us get through it all, and I hope you will as well.

photo credit: Anna Jakutajc-Wojtalik, Unsplash

Food Is Medicine: Part I

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I was in my 30s before I began to realize just how important the quality of food you eat is to your overall health. I grew up on boxed dinners, and when my children were very young, I bought frozen dinners and processed foods at the grocery store. I worked full time and thought I just didn’t have the time to cook. I trusted the American food system to ensure the food they were selling and I was feeding my family was safe. I was very wrong to trust in this system.

Our system is so broken, like in a devastating way. It’s so broken that I use it as a measure in my life. There are times when I question myself for being too far out of the “norm” for our society. “Am I crazy?” I ask Ron, but before he can answer, I remind myself that I cannot measure myself against a society that allows its food system to poison its citizens. “There’s arsenic and lead in our baby food and glyphosate in our Cheerios–that’s crazy,” I say.

I still work full time, so we do not always eat the way I am aiming for; however, we do really well. This has never been more evident to me than in the last couple of weeks as we have been sick with COVID. There is nothing that makes me feel better than our homemade food. In fact, I think part of the reason I got so, so sick and ended up at the hospital the second time was that my immune system was attacking my nervous system and impacting my ability to move my limbs and my mouth. I couldn’t eat very well. I struggled to eat and drink without choking during the worst of it all, so though I was hungry, I just couldn’t eat. This meant no whole grain breads, no fresh eggs, no frozen organic vegetables from our garden, and I think it made the toll of everything even worse.

In the first two days after I was out of the hospital, neither Ron nor I could cook, so we resorted to take out. We got the best take out we could find, but I noticed I didn’t start to really feel better until Ron rallied himself and cooked homemade fettuccini from scratch. He made egg noodles from our eggs and organic flour, homemade organic sauce, and he steamed frozen broccoli he grew last summer. When he sat a giant plate of noodles and broccoli in front of me, it was the most beautiful thing I think I had ever seen. I ate every single bite of that good food, and I immediately felt better. It was after that meal that I turned a corner for the better.

I am still struggling a bit and am very weak by the end of the day every day, but I am making really good progress. Tonight, I made minestrone using our homemade spaghetti sauce as a base. This sauce is made with tomatoes, onions, and peppers, all from our garden. We can it in the early fall each year, and tonight, it nourished me.

I thought I might write a little this week about how we eat and what we eat–and on the importance of eating organic and minimally-processed foods. It can’t save us from lead, but it can save us from glyphosate and dozens of other chemicals that are not good for us. Many common foods in our food system lower our IQs and may even (though I suspect most likely) lead to cancers.

Of course, it’s all a process. We didn’t just decide to change our eating habits and lifestyle and then, overnight, eat farm to table every night, but it’s a process that has helped me so much and may be able to help others. I’ll tell my story, and if I feel ambitious, I might tell other stories as well. We’ll see how I hold up.

Thankfully, there’s more minestrone for dinner tomorrow night.

photo credit: Ellie Ellien, Unsplash

Just Enough

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

We finally got enough tomatoes to make our sauce. We live on this sauce for meals throughout the year, so we’ve been a little worried about the tomatoes. Thankfully, we had just enough today for our first batch. I think we will get enough for one more batch, and that will do us because we still have some left from last year when we had such a bumper crop of tomatoes.

Last year, we processed 125 pounds of tomatoes, had about 75 pounds for farm shares, and gave away 50 pounds. This year, I think we will be fortunate to get 50 pounds in total. Those horn worms came during a time when our son was at music camp, and we were swamped. Those little caterpillars did big damage. But it’s okay because we have just enough for sauce.

It’s a long day making the sauce because you have to pick all the veggies, wash and peel the tomatoes, make a puree out of the onions garlic and peppers, and then it all has to simmer for six hours. Oh, and you have to stir it every 15 minutes. I have just one round to go, and then it’s time to can. It will be a late night, and this is real slow food. It’s totally worth it though. Slow food always is, I think.

Also, the baby chicks are doing so great. They are just perfect!

Slow and Steady (or Gardening without Sunshine)

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

It has continued to be a gray, rainy summer here in Maine. We have had a few breaks and nothing like we saw where it rained all of June. Still, it’s been wet and gray most of the time.

Some foods in the garden have done well. The greens have been amazing. They have done so well that Ron just kept planting them over and over, so we could keep eating salads. The green beans also did well. The beets finally did something, and after so much carrot drama, we are now eating carrots. In fact, every single night, we eat from our garden, and I am thankful for the beautiful food full of good nutrition.

But I’m a little worried about the last things to finish every year–things like the corn and the tomatoes. Our tomatoes have struggled extra this year because of a horn worm outbreak. We found 21 of those very hungry caterpillars, and two plants were pretty much just gone. Those horn worms are so hard to see. It’s like they wear invisibility cloaks. Somehow, they match both the stems and the leaves from the tomatoes perfectly.

On top of the horn worm buffet, our tomatoes are lingering green because we just are not getting very much sun. This morning, I woke up and couldn’t believe how dark it was outside. Hopefully, the tomatoes will ripen. We depend on them heavily for sauce and soups.

The corn is another worry. Ron has a corn patch, and I planted my own corn in a three-sisters garden. I am seeing tassels, which is very exciting, but oh my goodness, we need some sunshine.

I’m crossing my fingers for a warm September. It’s possible. Two years ago, we didn’t get our first frost until after Halloween. Of course, last year, we had a frost in mid September.

In the meantime, we are eating well from the garden. It has been a “slow food” summer for sure and a year to learn extra patience about growing food in times of climate change. We spent years learning how to grow food in drought and hot summers. There has been a bit of a learning curve this year.

I would love to know how your gardens are doing. Where are you, and what has this summer been like for you?

Summer Harvest

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

We are in the thick of summer harvest, and it is both wonderful and terrible. Mostly wonderful. Still, it makes for some long days in the garden or kitchen or both.

Today, I processed 12 quarts of blueberries. Some were frozen. Some were for jam. Some were for pie filling. It’s been a bumper crop for our blueberries, but we have just 8 bushes old enough to product, so we also visit a farm north of us and pick from their high bushes. The blueberries are giant this year. It has been fun to pick them, though the heat has taken a toll for sure. They are so yummy it’s worth it. Plus, the heat broke yesterday, so I am hoping to go pick one more time.

The green beans are also ready, and the raspberries are still going a little bit. We have put up 14 quarts of green beans so far, and more will have to be processed tomorrow afternoon when I get home from taking my son to music camp on the coast. Summer harvest makes for some late nights.

But I learned a long time ago that that can’t sleep on that garden. When things are ready, they are ready. If you want to eat from the garden all year, you have to be ready to process a lot of food in a short amount of time in the summer and fall.

Of course, I am so thankful that we have so much to harvest right now. Food is so expensive at the store. It is wonderful to have all of this food to help feed us all year. This year started out more than a little worrisome, and we lost some things. Overall, however, things are looking really good right now. We didn’t get many beets, and most of the cabbage rotted; still, we had a couple of each. And the onions and garlic look great. We just started eating the onions in our dinners.

The carrots are coming and look beautiful. The potatoes are doing well, though Ron has had to treat them for blight. Mainly, the tomatoes are gorgeous. Oh, how I hope they keep going! It looks like it might be a good year for them. Oh, and my three Sisters garden is coming along so beautifully. I’m going to need a long summer for everything to make it though. Ron says that’s the only way the melons and watermelons are going to make it–a late frost will be key.

You never know what might happen these days. Last year, we got our first frost mid-September, and then it got hot again. That was a bummer. But the year before last, we didn’t get our first frost until after halloween. That was nice but scary at the same time. Maybe we’ll get something in between this year.

Oh, and Mary Jane is hanging in there. She had a great day yesterday and even slept on the roost. Tonight, she didn’t make it up on the roost though. I saw her get into a nest box for bed. Last night, I was in awe that she was sleeping on the top roost, and then I saw she was leaning on someone. It was a small, brown chicken who was just sitting there patiently, allowing the giant that is Mary Jane to lean on her. I went back into the house to get the flashlight because I had to see what chicken was allowing this.

It was Bianca! That hen is the sweetest hen in the history of ever.

Oxheart Carrots or the Fourth Time’s a Charm…I Hope

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

After three failed attempts at carrots this year, today, Ron planted carrot seeds. I told him I couldn’t plant them this time because I was cursed. I want those Oxheart carrots too badly. Maybe my desperation is creating negative energy.

But I think, after much investigation, we have figured out what happened to the last two rounds of planting. The first round was washed away by rain. We have some carrots in random places popping up. Those are pretty much the only carrots we have so far this year though. It took some sleuthing, but we now know that either slugs or cut worms ate the next two rounds of carrots.

I kept telling Ron that something was slaughtering the carrot seedlings, but he was skeptical because we have never had a problem like this before. I finally got him to believe me, so we planted again thinking surely the slugs or cut worms would have moved on by the third planting. Yesterday, I was so excited to find that we did have some seedlings popping up from the third planting. To test what was happening, I used tiny rocks from the garden to make circles around four seedlings. If we still had them this morning, we were probably going to be okay without the fourth planting.

Sadly, this morning, only one of the four seedlings remained.

I know I have said this before, but this year just keeps being tough on the garden front. We need sunshine so badly. We can get regular organic carrots from other farmers, but one of the varieties of carrots we plant is a French heirloom Oxheart carrot. I cannot get these anywhere else around here, and I adore them. They are a variety of France that has been around since ever and are great for rocky soils like we have in Maine. They are short and chunky and perfect for chopping up into sticks for stir fries–hence my desperation in planting. And, as organic gardeners, we can’t use pesticides to help in this situation. .

So Ron planted the carrots today in a different part of the garden. Additionally, since we know it’s either slugs or cutworms eating our carrot seedlings, I covered the area in crushed eggshells. This should work in keeping them away from the carrots once they sprout. It’s kind of like using Diatomaceous Earth, only the shells won’t wash away so easily in the rain–and we’re having a lot of rain this year.

Ron and I were talking this weekend about which is worse–this much rain and cold and cloudiness or the drought from last two years. We both agreed the drought is worse. But we are definitely having to use our critical thinking skills and just be tenacious to get things to grow this year.

*photo credit: Pine Tree Garden Seeds

A Farmer-ish Report: Spring Prepping for Winter

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a busy few days around here. The garden has been very, very slow this year. Some things haven’t really grown at all. The weather has been so cold and gray that our beets and most of our radishes just didn’t develop properly. Thankfully, the greens have been fantastic, but this week, I realized we are finally starting to have other things ready in the garden This means we have to get busy putting up food for the rest of the year. We also have to make sure we eat everything fresh that we don’t put up–or share it–before it goes bad.

Aren’t these duck eggs so beautiful?

Anyway, we have so many delicious greens, but my favorite spinach is starting to bolt. This means I have little time with it and need to freeze some for soups and quiches throughout the year. I also need to make some rhubarb jelly while the rhubarb is still in great shape. I may freeze some as well the year because I am gradually learning to make more things with rhubarb.

One perk of the cool June is that the chickens and ducks are still laying very well. In the last five years or so, it’s been so hot in June and July that the chickens didn’t lay as well. Right now, it’s such a pleasant temperature for a fluffy chicken that the laying has been great. We are eating eggs, selling eggs, and I am freezing eggs. So far, we only have four dozen put back for winter though, and I need twelve dozen.

I am hoping to have some time tomorrow to make the rhubarb jelly though, and I am about to go freeze one more dozen eggs. The time is upon us. From here until fall harvest, we have to be ready to put up food. It’s pretty time consuming, but, of course, it’s so worth it.

Oh, and I have a Ruby update: Her babies are doing well. I got a great video today that I’ll post on Facebook. Those babies got big overnight.

Raspberries: Delicious But Mean (or How to Prune Raspberry Canes)

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 337 of 365

Today, I pruned the raspberries! It feels so good to be finished with that task because it’s slow, tedious work for me. I am new to raspberry growing, and I have to study a bit to know which canes are dead and which are good. Today, I only cut two live canes, which is good for me, but I am beat up pretty badly. I wore gloves, of course, but I had on a 3/4 sleeve shirt and paid a dear price for not changing shirts. I guess I am also a bit allergic to the thorns, as I not only have a lot of cuts, I am covered in welts.

I was so grumpy at those bushes. I was thinking the whole time, “Crystal, you have to think about the delicious raspberries you will have this summer.” I had to find my raspberry happy place in order to struggle through this chore. I was imagining raspberry muffins and raspberry jam. Pruning the raspberries has not been a favorite chore of mine, but since my sickness, I get tired more easily. Still, I did it, and I am proud.

If you are about to prune raspberries for the first or second time, I have advice that may be helpful. This was my third year pruning, and I made far fewer mistake cuts this year.

First of all, put on the proper clothes. You will need gloves and a long-sleeved shirt at the least, but a jacket would be better. Raspberries bushes are mean. The thorns will shred you, so be wiser than I was and leave no skin exposed. If you have long hair like I do, put it up. The canes will grab your hair.

I recommend a very long handled pruner to help you keep your distance. I got smacked in the face with a cane one time today, and it was not fun. Not fun at all. I guess the bad side of using a longer handle is the way it limits precision, so maybe there are pros and cons to the long handles.

When pruning, look for the canes that are a little rougher to cut. It will look like they have bark. This seems to be a pretty good indication, if you can’t tell otherwise. Sometimes, you can just tell. It looks definitely dead. And the good canes will have some color to them. I learned how to prune from my neighbor who is a master gardener, and I can tell you that you might be surprised at how many canes you have to remove every year. It’s quite a lot, but they grow back with great enthusiasm every summer and end up being full, beautiful bushes.

Pruning is so important. I have seen raspberry patches where the people didn’t have time to prune much, if at all, and my neighbor’s was raspberry patch has always been so much more beautiful. So I copy her as much as I can. I am fortunate to have a neighbor who is a master gardener.

Much was accomplished today.

Eat What You Grow: Tips on Planning a Garden to Feed Your Family

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

Day 316 of 365

One of the first lessons I learned as a beginning homesteader was that eating what you grow can be more difficult than it seems on the surface. When you are working full time, raising a family, and caring for animals, your days are pretty full, usually too full. Adding harvest to those duties can be a challenge, especially when you are used to eating from a grocery store. I was not at all used to eating from a garden, so there was a learning curve.

We knew we wanted to change the way our family ate, and we knew we didn’t want to waste. We had a pretty good plan for using all of the food, but I didn’t realize how time consuming harvest could be. In the first year or two, some good food went by us. Thankfully, it mostly went to the chickens, but it was hard to waste some of it. Growing your own food will teach you so much about waste. Wasting food feels like a sin once you see the work and water resources that go into growing it.

If you are planning to step up your homesteading game this year and grow more of your own food, I thought I might share some tips about planning at the beginning, using what you harvest, and making the most of what you grow.

Tips

1. In your planning, think about what you can grow that you will use for sure. We started with things like green beans, potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes because we were already a lot of these things and buying fresh or frozen from the store. These were staples we knew we could use. So, when you plan, think about what you and your family will really eat. I have some other tips about tricking picky children into eating from the garden if it’s not their preference, but that’s another post.

2. After you decide on what foods you will grow, write these foods down in a notebook. List each food, and make a list of meals or snacks that you can make that will use these foods. In the planning stages, start looking for recipes. Add your favorites to your notebook right now.

3. If you want to grow enough of each food to “put up” to eat the rest of the year, make a plan on how you will put up those foods. We can a little and freeze a lot but hope to can more this coming year now that we finally have a pressure canner. If you plan to can, make sure you have some jars purchased well in advance. I have seen them be pretty much sold out in the stores during harvest season, even before the pandemic. You can also put up food by dehydrating, It’s something we are looking into, and you can do some pretty cool things. If you want to do that, make sure you have all of your supplies in advance. Since we have never dehydrated food, I don’t know if those supplies sell out too, but I promise harvest season is intense enough without worrying about getting supplies. It’s good to be prepared if you are planning to put up food.

4. During the height of harvest, take some days off from work if you can. I have found that it’s easier to spend a couple of full days blanching and freezing carrots or making tomato sauce rather than trying to get all of the materials and tools out and doing it over and over and over again at the end of a day at work. It’s so much better if you make one or two messes instead of six or seven.

5. Finally, just remember it is all a process. You have to be patient with yourself. In the first couple of years, we weren’t prepared for how prolific green beans were. They are quite prolific!

Oh, one more tip! Plant something just for fun that you think you or your family might eat. I wouldn’t plan a lot of different things you aren’t sure about, but it’s good to do something fun and see what you think. It’s a great way to get your kids involved too, who can be great helpers during harvest. Even our grumpy teenager chips in during harvest, and it turns out he likes Kohlrabi.

Hopefully, these tips will be helpful if you are just getting started gardening or putting up food. We now grow at least 60% of our own food, and we are planning to do a little more this coming year. It’s all a process of learning and growing and meeting goals (whatever your goals are) on your own time.

And I hope all of this practical advice doesn’t take the romanticism out of eating what you grow. It’s a magnificent thing to do. The food is so good. The food you eat from your garden tastes worlds better than anything at the grocery store, and as you develop your skills, you will save hundreds to thousands of dollars on your grocery bill.

*I thought it may help to see a list of our usual harvest and how we adjust our eating habits to use what is in the garden. I am leaving things out for sure, but I hope it gives you a general idea of how we make use of the garden harvest.

May

Spinach
Lettuce
Radishes
Rhubarb

In May, we start eating salads every single night. They are either sides or the meals. These early salads just have greens, radishes, and cheese, but we eat them every night in May and June. Ron will replant greens in mid summer, and then we will have salads and wrap with the greens and fall vegetables. We also use the rhubarb to make muffins, jams, and pies.

June

Spinach
Lettuce
Radishes
Strawberries
Kohlrabi
Beets
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Sugar Pod Peas

In June, we add beets, peas, and Kohlrabi to the salads. I also make stir fries a lot during this time, as well as vegetable lo mien. We eat the sugar pod peas and Kohlrabi as snacks, as well as the strawberries. Oh, how I love the strawberries. We freeze broccoli and cauliflower and some of the strawberries. I also make strawberry jam. I have always made low-sugar recipes, but I am hoping to learn how to use honey this year.

July

Beets
Green Beans
Raspberries
Cabbage
Potatoes
Kohlrabi
Zucchini

In July, I do a lot of different stir fries. There are some fantastic recipes with beets that I really love. I had no idea how much I loved beets until I had them not pickled. I like pickled beets, but I love them just being their beet-selves. We also start eating potatoes again, which I love. We usually seem to run out of potatoes in May or so, so we go a few months without potatoes. The raspberries are our snacks, and I always make at least one raspberry-peach pie. It’s hard to find good peaches, but I try to every year. The raspberry-peach pie is a special celebration around here.

We also freeze most of the green beans, though we do eat some fresh. I am hoping to can green beans this year. The green beans will feed us all year. We store the potatoes in a large black back in our basement cold room. It’s not as good as a root cellar, but it does fairly well. Just keep the dirt on them, and they will last many months. I also always make raspberry jam.

August

Tomatoes
Bell Peppers
Jalapeño Peppers
Blueberries
Green Beans
Oxheart Carrots (I adore these carrots)
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Corn
Onions
Garlic
Basil
Oregano
Potatoes

This is the month that really feels like harvest, and it gets a little wild around here. This is the month we put up most of the food we will eat throughout the long winter. With that much freezing and canning and prepping going on, dinner is a little wild. I will make a lot of wraps (I make homemade tortillas with whole grain flour), and we eat those all the time. But we’ll have green beans on the side. Sometimes, we have peppers on the side of that. Sometimes, for dinner, I’m like, “Here is a plate of corn on the cob with tomatoes on the side, and, here, have another tomato. You like tomatoes, right?”

In terms of putting up, we freeze blueberries (a lot of them) and make jam. We make the spaghetti sauce I shared before out of the tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, and herbs from the garden. We freeze green beans, corn, and carrots and will not buy any of these foods for the rest of the year. The same goes with potatoes and onions.

September

Tomatoes
Corn
Bell Peppers
Jalapeño Peppers
Squash
Yellowstone Carrots
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Potatoes
Onions 
Garlic 
Pears

In this last month of harvest, we enjoy the last of the fresh corn and tomatoes, and the pears are especially treasured. I make pear crisp but eat them fresh, of course. We bake the squash and will eat fresh carrots as snacks into October.

We continue to use the tomatoes, peppers, and onions to make sauce. We are hoping to can whole or diced tomatoes this year as well for winter soups. We freeze the carrots and the last of the corn.