PRESERVING
With so many tomatoes I thought I would try pickling some of the Green Cherry Tomatoes. A few years ago I did a refrigerator recipe for pickled cucumbers - cucumbers that I probably bought at the store and they turned out pretty well. Fast forward to this week I recall a recipe that came from a Mother Earth News email and tucked that away for future reference and then there was a vlog by Bri (of Art & Bri). To be honest I didn't watch the video, but I decided I would try to find something that I could try and came across THIS one.
The recipe was straight forward and it didn't take much time at all. The first round that I did made a couple of quarts (the recipe is written for one quart).Then a couple of days later I decided to try another round in the morning before going to work.
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| These were processed this past Monday, October 10. |
The plants are ready, the space is ready, but we need to figure out how to put together a low tunnel - mostly to protect my plants from the critters that might be hanging around during the rainy season. At the beginning of the week we still needed the row cover fabric that we'll use to cover the row up. That has been purchased and we are good to go. However, life keeps happening and other things have been taking up our time instead. AND with the high winds that are in the forecast for tomorrow (10/15) I'm not sure that we'll have a lot of action outside. The plants will be fine though they are currently living in the hoop house and growing like crazy! I'll be happy to get them out though. These crops are my last garden experiment for the year and I would like to get it done sooner than later.
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| The front tray has my Flower Sprouts and the tray behind has Kale and Purple Broccoli. |
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| Pac Choi |
For 2017 I am hoping to do a little farm stand of some sort at the end of the driveway starting in the spring and continuing for as long as I have stuff to offer. So far my vision includes doing vegetable starts as well as a variety of pretty flowers and some common kitchen herbs This all in addition to growing our own food.
I have all sorts of ideas like growing item for salsa, salads, pickling. Also, I thought it would be cool to offer the veggies in "kits" for those salads and salsas etc. That's a different idea that I have not seen, not around here anyway and I'm hoping that I could make that my "thing." With so many neighbors that live directly across the street that have little to no yard, they might appreciate some fresh produce or even some flower and veggie starts to put in containers. Hmmm....
Next year will be all about MORE - specifically of the things that did well - potatoes, beans, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and the leafy items. Let's be serious, it's hard to NOT grow leafy items. Especially Kale. I still have the kale that I planted in late spring and I'm planning to add more - haha! I see more mashed potatoes and kale on the Winter menu.
Then number one thing on the list of things to do next year - chickens! I want to follow the Justin Rhodes way of raising chickens and garden prep and get some chickens. I'll have a few months to plan what type of chicken to raise (for meat and eggs), the kind of structure we want to house them in and where we want to get them started on the property. I suppose the first thing to do is figure out where to buy the little guys first. More research!
END OF SEASON
There are several items that are at the end of their season and it's time to get them pulled up. Last weekend I cleaned up the area that had all of the tomatillo experiment and just threw them aside. The Tongues of Fire drying beans that I planted midseason survived the heat and the deer and I got a few pods. Enough that I will definitely plant more next year for a larger harvest. The green beans have been done for a while as well as the cabbage. There are still a few items to clean up!
You would think that the tomatoes would be ready to go, but they are still hanging in there. There hasn't been a frost yet so the plants are okay. I'll be going out to see if there are any more perfect green tomatoes for pickling. The Groop House tomatoes are growing like crazy and I actually had to trim them back. Mostly so I could see where the ripening tomatoes were hiding more than anything. I have 2 or 3 cayenne pepper plants that have some puny little peppers on them so I might just go ahead and get those out of there. Those are just taking up space.
Mary planned to be over after we do our Girls Breakfast Club. We'll see if she really wants to come over while it's stormy out. High winds...I don't think even I would really want to go out and continue with my end of summer veggie season tasks.
DAHLIAS
The Dahlias hoo-boy. I want to lift them this year, but I'm not sure when that will be now that it is already mid-October. If I gotta wait until November I will, but I would rather get those out sooner than later. The purpose of storing the tubers...to double or triple the Dahlia garden and add another thing to sell. Nine out of the ten plants came up so next year we'll have a a goodly amount to plant. I guess we should prepare another area for them!
The life of a hobby farmer: there is always something new, always a project/experiment and there is always satisfaction with working hard with our hands and with each other.
There isn't anything else I'd rather do.
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