The May Whirlwind

Somewhere between the bleeding hearts and the rhododendron blossoms, and in the midst wedding weekends, school work, photography gigs, travels and raindrops...we somehow managed to get our garden in.

Moses was a big help- soaking newspaper for some weed control while simultaneously soaking up the news and soaking himself to boot.  Since the name on the stack of newspapers was Nancy Leutbecher, I am thinking they were not current events.  ;-)

We had to plant green and purple beans twice, our cucumbers THREE times (and then finally had to buy plants from the greenhouse) and someone-who-shall-remain-nameless inadvertently weeded some of my happy little spaghetti squash plants... but other than that, I think this might be the best garden we've had thus far.  

I scrounged up as much black plastic as I could muster, desperately hoping that THIS might be the year that we can stay ahead of the weeds.  Only time will tell, but so far even the CHILDREN are admiring how weed free it seems to be.

So long May.  Your visit was too short.  Stick around longer next time, eh?

The Help

Really, none of this would have been possible without the slave labor.  

                                                  

                                                They are really amazing kids, these.

                                    And one more because his fat little face is so funny:

Before Hibernation

For one of the first times ever, I actually finished all the outdoor work BEFORE it turned freezing. 

This has less to do with my own determination and more to do with the fact that the weather stayed warmish until the beginning of December. 

And the fact that many hands helped me this year, instead of doing it on my own.  That makes a HUGE difference.



I planted garlic in a new spot this year.  Last years' harvest was almost nil (despite planting over a hundred cloves) so I am hoping this new spot will be better suited to garlic.  Please, oh please!



Interspersed throughout this boring post of garden chores, I saved some flower pictures from our first frost.    Like how I did that?  Yep.  Makes this post a little prettier on the eyes. 



Some road crews came and cut down branches/trees/limbs in the way of power lines.  I chased them down and asked if they wouldn't mind dumping a load of woodchips in my front yard. 

Yay for free mulch! 

And new places to play...



~ Ahoy there!  I spy some pirates shooting cannons off their ship!  Their enemies don't stand a chance.



Oh look- a third!  This pirate looks to be braiding strands of wood.   No doubt necessary in its' own rite.





~ When little boys grow up to use power tools.... Mama's are simultaneously joyful in the delegating opportunities opened up and stricken with terror for life and limbs.







The sky on fire when we worked.









The freshly mulched flower circle...



We worked until the fire turned to ash.





What does one do when their garden has a bum harvest?  This...



Why yes, that is a baby sitting in.... well, you know.



And that picture of me spreading manure isn't exactly accurate.  I labored for about 20 minutes and discovered wet manure dumped by the tractor bucket load is not exactly easy to spread and it ain't fun.  So I gave up.  I'm a quitter.  Just being real.

Matt finished the job later on his tractor.  Unfortunately, only HALF of the garden got the black gold. 

But half is better than none, am I right?

  There is garlic in the ground, manure on the garden and mulch on the flowers.  

Now I can hibernate proper-like.

All in a Week

Blueberries were all dried up this year due to the drought at the 'cheap' u-pick place.  This meant we had to forage for wild huckleberries, which were pretty crummy too.  Wild huckleberries are already smaller and take much more time to pick- but we picked them at the tail end of the season, when there was only picking one or two berries at a time.  These berries were hard won.  

I asked the children to harvest from the garden.  Everyone gathered bowls.

Can you guess who gathered this bowl?

Adele.

It has her signature all over it.  ;-)

And then the boys organized it all on the porch.  That has their signatures all over it.

Due to the drought, many things aren't doing great in the garden.  We have no melons, a measley pumpkin patch, hardly any cucumbers, zero fruit anywhere and the tomatoes got the nasty lateblight that kills the blossom end of the tomato and not just the foliage.  But- we have peppers!  Loads of amazing peppers!

I did buy some local u-pick berries, out of fruit desperation since we have no baby apples, cherries, peaches, nectarines or blueberries from our own bushes/trees in our future this year.  The blueberries were cheaper than the grocery store but they weren't cheap by any means.    

The blackberries were free though!

I bought a bushel of peaches too.  I can't wait for the day I won't need to buy fruit.

I have to get all last years' leftover canned goods into one area before adding the new canned things in.  It helps me rotate food out better.  Until I get a chance to do that, though, the picnic table is getting pretty full!

My brother in law, who happens to be the big bossman of a hotel restaurant and happens to be awesome like that, let me in on a meat deal last week.  40 pounds of restaurant-quality boneless/skinless chicken breast, 60 pounds of pork loin and 80 pounds of 80/20 ground beef for $235.00.  That's about $1.30 a pound!  I couldn't pass that deal up- even though it would take sorting through freezers and making room for 180 pounds of meat.  I got rid of lots of frozen shredded zucchini (who needs it when compared to carnivorous things?!?  But the chickens loved it.) and canned other things that didn't need to stay frozen (like frozen bone broth and peaches) then divided the meat, freezer packed and labelled it all and squeezed it all in somehow.  It was a big job.  But wow- was it worth it!

 I canned up:

~ 12 qts of bone broth (chicken, ham and turkey)
~ 7 quarts of peaches
~ 15 qts of tomatoes (whole in their own juices)
~ 21 jars of peach jam
~ 7 jars of marinara sauce

I flash froze and bagged:

~ 180 pounds of chicken, pork and beef
~ several gallons of blueberries and foraged huckleberries
~ several cookie sheets worth of foraged blackberries
~ 2 gallons of peach slices
~ 6 quarts of corn, sliced from the cob
~ a cookie sheet of diced green peppers

Oh.  And I was in charge of making 4 gallons of homemade ice cream for a reunion on Sunday afternoon.

It was a busy week in the kitchen, and I was a hot, sticky, sweaty mess canning up a storm during those sweltering 90 degrees 98% humidity days (why can't I can up some of this heat for winter storage?!?) Between the drips of sweat running down the back of my knees and vacuum sealing bag after bag (after bag), it couldn't have been more apparent how much abundance surrounds us.  

If you ever wonder how I can feed everyone, this is it. When other people are vacationing or sitting by the pool/ocean/air conditioner, I am in the kitchen sweating like a pig.  Chopping, dicing, canning, freezing, mashing, mushing, stirring, sealing.  One little bag of cheap meat, one little bag of hard-earned huckleberries plucked off bare brances at the end of the season, one green pepper chopped up at a time...all bits to feed and sustain this group of hungry bellies that I love so dearly.  It's all work.  It's all abundance.  It's all gratitude.  

Lest you get the wrong idea after reading thus far, I should tell you that among all that above productivity there was also:

~ loads of clean laundry accumulating throughout the entire week on the living room floor without being folded.  By Saturday it was probably six loads and by then, of course, scattered.

~ I found  two bags of shredded zucchini from 2009 in the freezer.  2009.  Seven-year-old freezer-burnt zucchini anyone?  Anyone?!?

~ A less than lovely Mamabear who did more growling than she cares to admit

~ take out one night for dinner

~ a whole bowl full of cherry tomatoes that didn't get into the dehydrator in time and wound up needing to go to the chickens instead

~ copious amounts of child slave labor forced upon the young'uns

And guess what?  

The table on the porch is full of things yet to be put into jars... 

the 'busy season' is upon us country Mama's.