I Have Learned This touched my heart and there are many I am still learning.
We're in cleanup mode for the main garden area and back again into planting mode in the hoophouse. Our weather seems to have settle into an nice Autumn, with temps holding into the mid to high 70'sF, with Sunday getting as high as 80F :o) This weather will help the hoophouse tomatoes to ripen at a steady rate and I don't have to water everyday.
This weekend we butchered approx. 20 chickens, some were to old to bother with( 4-5 yrs old and one 7 yrs old) and 10 roosters, they were the Plymouth White Rocks, we ordered, to raise up as fryers. We still have approx. 15+ fryer hens and 6 turkeys to butcher in two weeks. We've sold all but one of the turkeys and that will be put in our freezer :o) Next year, we won't have any turkeys to sell, the hens didn't set their typical 3 nests this year and the one they did hatch some poults, only one survived. Such is life on a homestead.*sigh*
This should help cut down on our feed/ grain costs and we'll be able to cut back to one coop again. We'll keep two Toms( a Narragansett and a Bourbon Red) and two hens( Narragansett and a Bronze wit hopes of finding a Bourbon Red hen)
I will admit, I'll be glad when the lawn slows or quits growing, I have better things to do then mowing. We're still picking raspberries, actually we're letting friends and neighbors pick now, we've already put up jam, jelly and 8gallons frozen and we have some frozen ones left from last summer.
This week we hope to begin our kraut making and we're actually going to lacto- ferment some red beets( shredded), with onions,carrots( shredded) chard stalks and kale I hope it turns out well. :o)
We still need to harvest our millet, bundle and hang to dry and collect our bush bean dry pods as well as the dried climbing beans pods. The radish pods are still green but mature and the deer are eating them, so will harvest and hang to finish drying.
May your week be filled with much productivity and many blessings :o)
16 comments:
Wow! You guys have been busy! I love your new fall "look" on the blog and that picture is just beautiful.
I'm drooling over the amount of raspberries you got this year. Too bad I'm not a neighbor of yours because I sure could help you not have them go to waste!
I hope one day to get my ducks in a row like you. You are always getting so much done!
8 gallons of frozen raspberries!!! Wow. I love them. I used to have 200 feet of raspberry rows, but disease finished them off by the third year and I've not tried again since.
~Faith
oh, how I would love to have some of your homemade kraut! That is a lot of raspberries!
Sounds like your winding down on your produce. What do you do with Millet?? Do you feed it to the chickens? or is it just decorative? I haven't a clue. It will be nice having tomatoes growing into the fall in the hoophouse....debbie
You have been busy! I enjoy this time of year, changes in the garden and yard. Planting strawberries today and cleaning out more of the garden. I so want to try and make sauerkraut again, tried it twice now and can't seem to get the hang of it. Maybe one of these times it will work for me. Have a great day!
I hear ya, and I am not doing anywhere near what you are doing! I can't wait to put the garden to bed this year, tho I must say, I will miss the tomatoes terribly.
Kelle....your comment on my pasta post was most welcome, as I wasn't sure how to go about drying the pasta. When you dry it, do you dry it completely, then bag it up for another time? Or is it just for that particular day's cooking? My instructions say to let it dry for 20 minutes, but there has to be a way to dry it so completely that you can store it in ziplocs.
Thanks!
Cindy
That fermented beet stuff sounds yummy!
i love the new fall picture on the homepage! homemade kraut?? oh, i hope you post the recipe!! sounds good. you guys are busy and it's awesome your're busy with your own stuff from your own land. winter curling up time will be there soon enough, i'm sure. love to hear the updates.
Isn't it so much fun. I love it when things are clicking right along like that and you are living the way you were meant to live. Next year is our year to have it all together here at the mini farm. This year was trial and error and mainly a building year. Even though this is the first day of fall and I can't wait till spring.
How many square feet of raspberries do you have? I'm going to be planting some next year and would like to get a nice big harvest! :)
Also, how many square feet of millet do you raise? I'm interested in trying this next year too.
Sci Fi,
Thanks I don't think that we're actually going to get much of a Fall, so made one on here to enjoy*wink* :o) Indeed! to bad you aren't a neighbor, we'd love to share. In fact it's been disappointing at how many people we've offered the extra raspberries to, if they pick them and very few have taken us up on the offer*sigh*
Faith,
Sorry to hear about your raspberries, I remember you were fighting a disease :o( Wish you were closer, we'd gladly share :o)
Hey! email me and I'll send you a jar of Raspberry Jam, made with honey, it's delicious!
We are busy, but somedays I feel like I'm running in circles*sigh*
Kat,
I'll gladly share a jar, when it is finished, if you share your email addy here( I moderate all comments, so will NOT publish it) and we can then exchange snailmail addys*wink*
Debbie,
We are winding down after a fashion, but still plan on having the hoophouse growing salad items and finishing the tomatoes, cantaloupe and peppers, it's warm in there, when it's not outside :o).
Millet is good as a hot cereal, to use whole in breads or grind into flour. Now getting the "Hairy" part separate from the grain is a challenge. It is beautiful as decoration too and hold together nicely for dried flower arrangements. I have a bundle hanging on the front porch that I use for arrangements.
Cheryl,
I made kraut for several years in canning jars, before I found my 5 gallon crock at a garage sale. Maybe you are making it when it is still to hot outside. The place you let it set has to be cool, no warmer than 70F, the cooler the longer it takes to finish but it also doesn't spoil/ sour/ mold.
I'd be glad to share my jar method if you'd like.:o) Our strawberries didn't fair so well the last few summers. Last summer they were overrun with weeds, so made a new bed using the sheet mulching method and transplanted all that survived but them our cool wet summer they didn't do much, they didn't even set on runners very well :o(
Cyn,
I hang them until thoroughly dry and then store in zip lock freezer bags. You can also freeze them after semi drying too*wink* Typically we just make them fresh for whatever meal we need them for, it doesn't take long. Don't forget that they make WONDERFUL gifts, we made up baskets for Christmas one year and included canned goods, jellies, and dried pastas( spinach spaghetti, sun dried tomato lasagna, basil/ garlic egg noodles, etc...)We dried and vacuumed sealed the noodles. The baskets were such a hit everyone returned them for refills the next Christmas*wink*
GW,
It does sound good and I hope it turns out good too*wink* Lacto fermented foods are so much better for you and digesting/ absorbing the nutrients is easier as well. I just like the ida of storing produce( veggies and fruit) without canning or freezing :o) I just got a book about "Preserving without Canning or Freezing". It's very interesting so far( I'm about halfway into it) It's all about preserving with oils, sugars, salts, vinegars, lacto fermentation and dehydrating.
Hopeful,
I surely will post a tutorial of making kraut, maybe early next week. I made it for years in canning jars, before I was blessed with my 5 gallon Redwing crock find via a garage sale( another steal at $25 and it is not cracked, although has a chip in the rim, but that doesn't hurt anything) :o) We look forward to your posts as well, especially your chicken house/ yard adventure, you are doing such an amazing job. :o)
Redneck,
You've had a tough few months, glad to see you've overcome it and are still smiling. We're still in the building stages, for the most part I don't think you are ever truly done, hence our farm's name*wink*
We, as I've shared are backing off somewhat or downsizing because the people in our area just aren't into supporting locally grown anything*sigh* So we're moving back to our first vision of raising foods for our own use and for a few loyal customers.
As a Redneck, you know how to adapt and overcome, keep your chin up :o)
Diane,
Not sure of square footage for either crop, but the raspberries we originally started with 20 bare root canes, which were planted 2-3 ft apart( in a triangle/ corner of our orchard), as suggested. Of course now they have filled in and the old canes are thinned out each spring.
The millet is planted in a row approx. 15 ft long. This grain actually likes to be bunched together for support against wind. I hope this helps you :o)
Thank you everyone for your comments, we enjoy them so much! :O) Blessings for the remainder of your week.
Hi there~Thanks so much for stopping by my blog last week. :) Things look pretty busy at your place too. :)
Hope you can come back soon for a visit.
Gracious you`ve been busy! We have chickens to butcher as well and a couple of drakes....and a steer. Nice to know our freezer will be filled though! =)
Looks like you have your hands full.Hope you'll get more support for your produce by the locals.
Grass's a trouble at my farm too - grow too well! Have to resort to one of those grass cutting machine
Farmchick,
As you well know what busy is*wink* yes we've been busy. We'll visit your blog more often, when things slow down a bit. We love your recipes!
FeralFemale,
Amen to the FULL freezer, ours is so full we're wondering where we'll put the rest of the chickens, turkeys and a beef. What a problem to have*wink*
Grandpa,
We hope the local support will turn around too. It's a good thing this isn't our mainstay income, because we'd be in BIG trouble.
It's been a blessing that the grass has grwon so well in the pastures, it's just the lawn that presents the grumbling. I really should grumble at all but rather count my blessings we've had the moisture we have had, many are in drought and suffering much heat.
Thanks for stopping by everyone!
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