Well, I've officially gotten WAY behind on this blog. At this point, I'm so far behind, I have to review my posts to make sure I'm not being repetitive, but if I take the time to review the old posts, I won't have time for new posts. I've finally decided to throw caution to the wind, and take the risk of mentioning the same vegetable twice. Truthfully, I would be honored to have people following this blog closely enough to notice if I used the same picture twice.
Without further ado, here's another quick trip around and inside the homestead, as I try to recap the last three weeks or so.
The end of summer is an insanely busy time for me. At work, project are usually in a hurry to finish before schools open. On the homestead, harvesting and processing kicks into full swing. At the same time, normal maintenance and construction projects always need to be taken care of. The beauty of a temperate climate in the prime of its life make everything seem a little easier, though. The flowers in the picture below are kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, a beautiful annual that self-seeds here in zone 5b. They typically grow 5'-7' tall on stalks that look like bamboo, and each plant sprouts several dozen of these vibrant pink flower clusters, which will turn into split-pea sized black seeds.
Hidden inside all this madness is the deepest part of my largest frog pond. The water here is about 5' deep, and we have 5 goldfish now who have successfully thrived through 4 winters now. This is a mix of natural wildflowers and perennials that gets no maintenance at all during the growing season.
The flowers attract beneficial bees and a good number of butterflies. By simply leaving these asters when I would weed around the edge, they've pushed out most of the less desirable weeds that used to grow here.
I normally thin out the cattails some through the summer, but this year I haven't had the time. I don't mind when they get a little thick, I can weave baskets with the leaves, and every part of the plant is edible, although not exactly tasty. I have two of these ponds that are a big part of my worst-case-scenario food stability.
I know I skipped the maintenance harvest post I had hoped to do, but this is the harvest from the following week. It's still not huge, only the peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, and celery were grown here. Although it doesn't look like a whole lot right now, at this point, we start to harvest at least this much every 2-3 days, and it adds up very fast.
Sure enough, 2 days later, we have enough to start getting things canned and frozen.
The first batch gets turned into spaghetti and pizza sauces, because those are both things that we will start using more of as soon as the temperatures start cooling down, which has already happened as of this post.
We've tried a lot of different labels over the years, and by far my favorite is cheap old masking tape. It's basically free for me, because every home in America has some of this in it that never gets used. When you're done with the jar, they peel off clean and easy. I can write them out on the spool like this, cut them with scissors, and label 30 jars in just a few minutes.
We happened upon some decorative peppers this year, and finally made ourselves a ristra. We've both wanted to do this for years, but my desire for hot sauce has prevented us from having enough peppers.
It's a pretty simple process, but it takes a little time to get the hang of. I quickly realized that the thread I was using wasn't going to hold all the peppers, and had to tie this off and switch to fishing line.
We were quite pleased with the final result, and this big hanging stack of peppers helps keep my sinuses clear when I'm working in the kitchen.
We also got a couple batches of cheese done while temperatures will still in the 80's. This is our second attempt at feta, and our first attempt at mozzarella. I'll do a more detailed post on these later, but for now I'll just say it came out good enough to eat.
These jugs look like cider, but it's actually ginger ale. Mine comes out dark like this because I like to add a touch of molasses. I usually do smaller batches, but I haven't had a lot of time for it this summer, and we recently got a nice refrigerator upgrade, so I made a heavy double batch.
The hot peppers keep coming in like crazy, so this year we'll actually have enough hot sauce to share some. This is a half gallon jar and a pint jar, which would get me through a year. We also have another quart canned, and a full bottle that holds a little less than a quart.
The best part of all this hard work is eating as you go. This is home grown basil and tomato with a chunk of the feta we made in the previous photo. This is quick to throw together, absolutely delicious, and we can just leave it out and snack on it through the evening.
I had a lot more planned for this post, but, as it always seems to be in the summer, it's much later than I thought. I hope you've all been doing well, I hope you're having a great summer, and I hope to see you back again, as soon as I find the time.
I also want to end on an apology for this post, for whatever horrible spelling and grammar mistakes you may find. I'm just too tired to properly proofread. Truthfully, though, I'd be honored to learn that any of you were reading closely enough to catch my spelling and grammar errors : )
Nice catch-up post about harvest on the homestead. :)) I've seen ristras in photographs, but not how they were made. I'm not fond of hot peppers, so won't be making one for myself. :)) Especially after you mentioned cleared sinuses in your kitchen. LOL
Congratulations @paradoxtma! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP