Haven't posted in awhile

First I would like to apologize in the couple week time span since my last post. There has been a lot of drama here at the farm and surprisingly nothing to do with the farm or any of my kids. Anyways...back to farming. We are about to enter our 3rd weekend of butchering. We had done it a little different then we have ever expected. 1st weekend we did 5 fatties, 2nd weekend another broke a leg the day before so he was going to the chopping cone and 2 others as well. This weekend we will only be doing another 3. The heat this week has been unbearable and there has been no rain for like 2 weeks. So trying to keep my family, the animals and my garden hydrated has taken all the extra energy I have left after this butterbean I am growing has sucked it out of me. HA HA HA

Here is the plucking station. You have to scald the skin a little to help get the feathers off. We used a turkey fryer hooked up to a gas grill.

Here is Mr. Smith scalding the skin.

Here is Mr. Smith about to take this fatty to chopping cone. We bought a piece of stainless steel flexible metal sheeting and made a cone. You put the chicken in the top head down and chop the head off. It then drains the blood.

Here is Mr. Edgar helping Mr. Smith pluck the feathers. He got paid in chicken meat :D

Here is a zucchini I pulled from garden last weekend and have a gotten a few more since. I put a pen next to it so you can see how big this guy really is! LOL My baby belly is in the picture too....this butterbean is growing fast! My sister in law has a really good recipie for zucchini I need to get off of her to use up some of these zukes!! LOL Its not slowing down :D

So in about a month we change the layers feed in anticipation of them laying eggs about a month later. Excited about that!! We have been letting outdoors almost at sunset to start getting used to being out of the coop. Mr. Smith had to chase some of them to get them back in the coop last night...they did not want to go back! They like the outside! It is so neat seeing them eat the grass and bugs and how they interact with each other and play.

I have also planted 6 cabbage seeds and 8 broccoli seeds for my fall seedlings. I did not get any more potatoes in and the last of potatoes are about to be done. Almost all my onions are done and finally my tomatoes are starting to turn red! So excited to start making spaghetti sauce! I saw 2 pumpkins finally growing around the corn. I did get another wave of corn in and I am going to try my best to get another in this weekend or next weekend...next weekend is the last weekend for my zone to get them fully grown before the first frost.

That's all that has been really happening here farm wise. Harvest continues and the heat wave/drought continues. We shall see what comes this next week! :)

Making food from harvest

Zucchini Bread

1 3/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup mashed/pureed zucchini

1/2 cup canola oil

1/3 cup water

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine the 1st 7 ingredients. In a small bowl combine the eggs, zucchini, oil & water. Stir into dry ingredients, just until moistened.

Transfer to a greased 9x5in loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 min. Cool for 10 min.

Huge zuke from my garden.

Pureeing it.

Baking in the loaf pan.

Done!! YUM YUM!

Wanted to show this pic. Of all the peas I have gotten out of the garden this is all the peas that came out of it. Enough for a serving for 1 person. :(

Spiced Blueberry Jam

1 1/2 quarts blueberries

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1 pkg pectin

5 cups sugar

Directions:

Remove stems & full crush ripe blueberries completely, one layer at a time (or blend coarsely in a food processor) Measure 4 cups of crushed fruit. Add more berries if necessary.

Place berries in a large kettle and stir in lemon juice, cloves, cinnamon, allspice and sure-jel or can-jel. Place over high heat and stir until mixture comes to a hard boil. Immediately add sugar and bring to a full boil, hard 1 min, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat, skim off foam with a metal spoon, stir and allow to cool for 5 min to prevent floating fruit.

Ladle into sterilized glass jars, leaving 1/2" space at top. Seal with lids. This should make about 7 cups or 3 1/2 pints of jam.

One of my jars of jam! :D Yum! This might be the last that I get to make of jam for the season. So hopefully 4 more pints of strawberry jam & 3 1/2 pints of blueberry jam will get us through to next strawberry season...unless the orchard started grapes...then maybe I will do grape jelly...but my little homestead is not ready for that just yet....a few years down the road! :)

This is the week!

This is the week that the chickens bite the big one. LOL Wednesday is the 8 week mark...but we will not be able to do the butchering until the weekend. I will post pictures of how big they have gotten a little later! I am so excited! :) We will be eating chicken quite a bit for dinner in the upcoming weeks...but hey I don't have to go to the store and buy them! I know where they were kept, how they were treated and what they were fed! :) Happy 4th of July!!

New garden pics!

Here is one of our zucchini plants with 2 zucchinis currently growing.

Green Beans on back fence, FINALLY growing good!

Roma tomatoes.

Wild tomatoes, we did not plant these. These are the beds that they grew in last year, but they have spread to even outside of the garden. It's weird, but I will take it!

3 sisters: sweet corn, green beans, and pumpkins. You can see the corn cobs growing in!

Our potato bed.

Cabbage.

Jalapeno peppers.

Broccoli.

Strawberry plants still spreading like wild fire! Next year will be good picking!

The onion bed that we just took 36 onions out of. Still have a few left that are still growing. :)

Close up of some of the 36 onions we pulled.

Real close close up!

The whole table where we are letting them dry out for storage.

Another close up. Some got pretty good sized.

A HUGE zucchini growing.

The 4 zucchini plants.

Sweet shelling peas...finally growing well also.

Sweet corn grown in the traditional way.

Another wave of sweet corn....1 more to come hopefully today and another in about 2-3 weeks, last of the season!

2nd onion bed, still growing strong. These are already looking larger then the ones we harvested from the first bed.

Cucumber.....have to weed here, I know!! LOL

Blueberries.

Onion seeds? These were flowering on top of the onions and I know that's where you get vegetable seeds. So I am going to look up how to store these or use them for fall crop.

So there are some updated pics....I know I haven't posted some in awhile. I will be posting more as things progress!

Awesome harvest today

These are the potatoes I dug out of our garden today! It was like digging for gold! It was awesome...I was so excited! We saw the one green top of the potato all wilted and when it does that, it means they are ready for eating! We are only getting one potato per green top so far...but only 2 greens were wilted. So hopefully there will be more as the rest go. I do have more time so I think I might replant some new potatoes to keep it going. These are red potatoes....they sprouted first before the russets...so I do not think the russets will wilt in time for me to replant those. This was an awesome learning experience so far and I am excited to see where it goes from here!

We are also getting onions now as well. They are not as big as I had hoped (forgot to take a picture, I will add one a little later) I think our soil was too compacted. They are still about 100 times bigger then when we planted them, I was just hoping for the ones I buy from the farmer's market that are the size of Mr. Smith's fist! We have harvested 3 onions so far...but all the green tops are now falling over and are telling us they are ready as well. The strawberries we planted next to them have taken over the bed...so it looks like we are going to have to plant more onions in another area. The strawberries taking over is nice for next years strawberry harvest!

Our broccoli has started to get heads and I waited 2 days too long to cut the one head and it started to flower...so it may be on the starchy side. Oh well. :)  I only got 1 head so far and its on the small side.

My blueberry bushes surprised me, I was not expecting blueberries this year since we just planted them this past fall, but they have given me a pretty nice harvest so far!

The peas....are slow and steady. We really missed the ball on those. I tried string with them and it wasn't working and then my husband got an old chicken fence...but it wasn't long enough and they haven't been producing well.

Corn is insane right now. When I was reading up on corn all the blogs and garden posts and everything said I would only get 1 cob per stalk....but I am getting 2 or 3 cobs per stalk so far and the pole green beans are running crazy all over the corn its great! No beans yet, but it is great to see. I still have not planted the next wave of corn and today was perfect weather to do it....the baby just wasn't agreeing with me or the weather. So I shall just have to hope and pray the baby will let me plant them tomorrow since Mr. Smith is supposed to get home from work early!

Zucchini has started to form from the flowers...I have about 3 or 4 started but a billion flowers! So I think it will be a good harvest year for zucchini...now we only eat zucchini in breads...so we shall have a lot of zucchini bread over the winter, which is great with hot chocolate on the cold winter nights cuddling with my hubby!

Kidney beans are finally coming in...very slow as well. Only have 3 for the entire season so far and I don't think its going to get any better...we just kept running into too many problems. Navy beans are non existent in the garden for the very same reason.

We have jalapeno peppers forming I saw 4-5 of them. I also saw 2-3 sweet yellow banana peppers and 2 green bell peppers.

We have so many wild tomato plants that I am no longer worried about planting more to make enough spaghetti sauce! We only really use tomatoes for spaghetti sauce and salsa...my husband likes them on his grilled cheese and I like them in hoagies. I would like to try tomato soup again this winter...but I have yet to find a recipe that my kids will eat. So we shall see.

We did replant cucumbers...as seedlings from a friend who had leftovers and they do not seem to be growing. I am going to try for the 3rd time to do pickle cukes...and I know I am running out of time.

This weekend Mr. Smith and I HAVE to sit down and figure out what we are doing for our fall harvest....this is the weekend to start that! Crazy that its already here and the season is already 1/2 way over.

Blueberry season has begun!

So as strawberry season closes, blueberry season opens! we have gotten 20 blueberries in the past 2 days...my kids are running by and eating them right off the bush :) We definitely need to get more blueberry bushes this fall.

Only 2 more weeks till its time to butcher the other 24 broilers.

I also found more room to plant another 2 waves of corn. The 1st wave is already making nice looking corn and the 2nd wave should soon be following! So this weekend I plan to plant the other wave of corn and in 3 weeks plant the final wave of corn. I counted backwards from the 1st frost date, using the harvest days on the pack of the seed packet and gave myself an extra week in case October decides to be extra cold so we can still get more corn! Our first potato greens have started to wither and dry...meaning about time to dig up those potatoes! I am so excited...it seems like everything is moving smoothly and we shall see how long this lasts us. My zucchini and pumpkins have begun to flower and the broccoli is growing insanely! I will have to add pictures soon....we had a crazy week and have ignored my garden for the past 4 days....it has surprised me in that time...and also exploded with weeds. :(

Strawberries are dwindling.

Looks like the strawberry harvest is coming to a close....only got 1 today and doesn't look like any more are really growing. I don't see any more flowers either. Pea pods are going really slow right now as well. Cabbage is starting to get the roll leaves and are about to start forming a ball! Potatoes started to flow, blueberries are starting to get a slight blue hue and some pumpkins have flowered. My wild tomatoes have started to flower as well. In about 2 weeks I will have to start planting the fall seedlings. Ones that have the longest till harvest first of course. I will be talking to Mr. Smith about that this week. I am thinking there is room for one more wave of corn.... might just do it. The last wave I did I just started to see little sproutlets! They are all gorgeous :)