Ken husked and shelled the dry corn. He has an antique sheller he has in a box. It is loud, but effective! We have two types – a yellow and a blue – black. Here are the empty cobs. Ken may burn them to an ash for a pottery glaze. Then he screens the corn and places in buckets with lids. This is our dry corn for …
The pork was ready at the locker so I organized the freezers. I had enough fruit to make some jam and wine. Here are two blackberry and raspberry combo batches, one batch of raspberry, and a small test batch of black currant jelly. I started wine from the culled fruit – a batch of raspberry, a blackberry, a currant and an elderberry. They are in closed buckets and soon I will move them to gallon …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has winter tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots or beets, cabbage, and salad mix Field Notes. Snow and cold. It feels like winter has arrived in earnest. And we are so glad to see the snow. It insulates the ground so the frost doesn’t go down so deep so quickly and preserves the microbial life near the top – otherwise the microbes die or go …
Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has salad and braising greens, potatoes, winter tomatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots or beets, onions or leeks, garlic, and herbs Field Notes. Well, We had an honest blast of cold after last harvest. Ken and I covered greens in both garden and mobile high tunnel, Ken got a hoopette over the carrots and beets, moved the chickens to winter quarters – …
Each fall we fill the root cellar for winter sales and our own use. This fall was so warm Ken has been harvesting later than usual and I have just finished getting some items in boxes and some roots buried in sand. Damp towels keep crops moist. Dry storage for squash and onions and garlic is upstairs in a dry cool corner Now I move on to book keeping and seed orders. …
After the last harvest on November 16th we saw that cold weather was coming. One of Ken’s late fall tasks is to move the hens into the garden for the winter. This year he has two groups of hens, and they seem happier in their respective coops, so he moved both portable coops to the garden. He also moved a portable structure I call teh hog hilton into the garden for the …
This year we have a bounty of fall greens. One of my favorite ways to serve fall cabbage family – cabbage, kale, kohlrabi tops, tatsoi, Chinese cabbage like Tokyo behana, Brussels sprouts or the top part of the Brussels sprouts plant is to wilt them. I tend to cut any harder stems, and then cut the greens in ribbons I fry up a chopped onion or leek. Then add …
Each year around this time I start getting frantic requests for eggs. Some people have discovered how much better real eggs are, some have lost their source, and some have stepped up their egg use with holiday cooking and baking. Eggs, like all food, have a season. Eggs, like all food, vary in quality. Once a person has eaten a tomato from a healthy plant grown in great soil during peak season….. The same is …
After a beautiful unseasonably warm autumn, cold weather and icy precipitation arrived Friday. Ken had been watching the weather and we went to the garden and covered some plants with fiber. Ken set up a long hoopette over the fall carrot and beet crops. Then as it neared dusk we changed hats and gloves and went to the mobile high tunnel. We covered …
Once the pigs go to the locker, Ken and I make soup stock from the heads and feet. I scrub the feet, and Ken starts the stock pot outside. Once the meat is tender I pull it from the bones and return the bones and cartilage to the pot. Then once the stock is done, Ken strains it and sets it outside so the fat rises. The next morning I skim the fat and set …
