October 4, 2021

                           

We took a trip to Illinois this week to pick up this tractor and implements that Jim bought on an auction.  He has an old and rusty John Deere MT that has been adorning our landscape for several years and he wanted to restore it to use as a tractor for our garden.  Our neighbor very kindly called Jim's attention to a plow for sale and Jim discovered that there was also a cultivator and a mower on the auction. The cultivator was what he really wanted, so we set a budget and he bid that amount and watched the bidding.  Somewhere in that process he decided to try for this tractor, an MT in MUCH better condition than we own, reasoning that the difference in price for the running tractor as opposed to the one needing restored wouldn't be much different.  I agreed on the condition that some of his unfinished projects and some of my projects would get done, pronto. This particular auction site continues after the ending time, resetting 5 minutes at a time until no one is bidding on anything.  Jim watched for an extra 2 1/2 hours, in case someone came close to outbidding him.  So, we went to get them, stopping on the way home at my folks.

When we got home, our neighbor came right over to see Jim's new purchases and revel in the idea of one more Old John Deere tractor in the neighborhood. Jim tried out the plow in the garden this afternoon.  He wants to clean up (sandblast, repair and paint) these pieces of equipment for gardening next spring. 

       

 

August 6, 2021

We put up our last batch of corn last night.  I'm glad to be done.  During corn season we eat and eat it, and put up bags and bags, and in three weeks we are tired of it.  Jim always plants two rows at a time 2 weeks apart, and it is usually all ready with in a week.  

The tally: 1st run, 17 1/2 dozen ears of corn = 50 quart bags.

                2nd, 11 dozen ears = 33 quart bags

                3rd, 10 dozen ears = 32 1/2 quart bags, this batch was almost too mature, thus more bags.   

I pulled up most of the onions this morning.  They are larger than usual and no so very many that have that rottenness at the bottom.  That seems more prevalent with the yellow ones.  I put another gallon of beans in the freezer this week, and made more pickles, 5 1/2 quarts of Bread and Butter pickles, 4 quarts of "Caddie" pickles, which are like a "sweet and sour" pickles, and 4 quarts of dills.  

 

July 26, 2021

 I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for blogging.  This is the most useful blog, or could be if I would use it properly.  We are well into the growing season, and with the 2" of rain this month and hot, but not too hot weather, everything is growing well.

We got our second picking of beans today.  We've been eating and putting up squash for three weeks.  We've been eating our potatoes and onions.  The yellow onions are the ones that get soft and rot, but we aren't having too much trouble this year.  Jim's little yellow tomatoes are producing more than he can eat and the garden ones are just turning.  We got round-up drift onto our garden this spring.  It was terribly windy and even with the farmer stopping far into his field, we still got hit.  We lost the peas and some of our tomatoes.  

I have about 20 qts. of beet pickles.  We got two white beets out of the deal and we ate them separately to see the difference.  Not enough to write home about.  I have 10 qts. of grated zucchini and yellow squash in the freezer, three batches of zucchini bread, 2 qts. of squash slices (there will be more) and 10 pints of zucchini relish.  We got two paper grocery bags of summer apples from a friend, and we got 11 gallons of peeled and sliced apples in the freezer and I made an apple crisp.  

Jim decided to buy meat chickens this year and we put 20 in the freezer.  We have eaten or given away the other three. It's a lot more work than Jim remembered.

  

September 26, 2020

 I'm calling it end of the season.  I gave up the beginning of the month since I was tired of processing garden sass.  All we have left is peppers, carrots, potatoes, carrots and squash.  We've eaten our two good spaghetti squash. I've started cooking, pureeing and freezing butternut squash. 

This is the first time we had a carrot bloom.  Jim pulled up, rather dug up, the culprit and we ate it for lunch.  This carrot is actually two entwined.  We don't thin our carrots, we just let them take their chance and we get some pretty strange configurations.  The really big carrots are very woody, and aren't as nice when cooked. 

Our okra thrived this hot dry year.  They were watered and grew taller than we've ever had okra grow before. Even Jim can't reach the top to harvest.  We have more than enough so we are letting them grow, they still are blooming, way up there 9ft. 9in. from the ground.  

September 4, 2020

The summer is winding down with cooler nights and a few cooler days mixed in with some very hot and windy ones.  I finally have enough tomatoes to can.  I've been putting some small amounts in the freezer right along.  I made a batch of tomato soup last week, some more pickles, and 6 qts of tomato juice.  This has been a strange year for some plants. Our tomatoes were late getting started and had black spots on them, they are better now, more fruit and fewer spots.  The okra is taller than it has ever been, over 6 ft. tall.  The cucumbers have been as prolific as ever, but I haven't been too enthused, I still have pickles leftover from last year.  

I pulled up the bean plants a week ago.  They've done well enough, though, thankfully not as well as usual.  We don't eat tons of green beans around here. 

The weeds have gotten away from us, to the point of letting most of them just go.  Jim has been cutting them off and feeding them to the cows in our pasture that belong to a friend.  The pasture is pretty dry, so they relish the tender parts of the leaves.  We could use some rain. 

Jim has started to harvest potatoes.  They seem to have something wrong with them, some are rotten where they met the stem.  

Water Hyacinth--August 8th.

Bumble Bee at the Farm 

Very Tall Okra 

Front door zinnas 

August 16, 2020

As much as I love to have home grown, home canned produce put away, it is starting to get the best of me.  This week I've made another 9 qts of pickles of the usual varieties; froze another gallon of beans, grated several qts of summer squash, zuke and yellow; put some tomatoes in the freezer for making soup this winter and forgotten about the okra still in the fridge that I will slice, cover with cornmeal and either eat or freeze.  If I wait another day, we can eat it tomorrow for supper. Over two days we've picked six 3-gallon buckets and two 5-gallon buckets of lovely red apples off our tree and frozen about 17 gallons of peeled and sliced apples, canned about 10 qts of applesauce, plus one small apple crisp. 

I also have a total of 36 qts of peaches in jars, 32 frozen peaches and some chunks from some rather beat up ones for smoothies in the future.  We picked two peaches off our own tree which has a total of 13 this year, because one was pecked and the other so closely attached it was both or none.  I think they are ripe, Jim doesn't. We'll see after a taste test.

August 11, 2020

We put 118 quarts of corn in the freezer in three evenings work.  When I was a kid and helping Mom with corn, I don't remember making and eating any supper.  We just ate corn.  I should see if Mom remembers, I'm not sure Dad would have been enthused about that.

Friday evening Jim and I picked garden and Saturday spent some time going around town to see if anyone sells a steam canner.  Mine has holes in the bottom and dripping all over, so it is out.  He went to Menards and the Farms stores and I went to Walmart and Ace.  No luck, so I ordered one online, I hope it comes since they aren't out to send until the month is almost over.  I still have my enamel water bath canner and after a refresher course, am using it.  I bought a jar lifter since I don't have all tall enough rack to pull all jars out at once.  Besides, that way is too heavy.  I also bought a 25# lug of California peaches. 

After that, I went to work on what we got out of the garden.  I got 3 qts of dill pickles, 6 qts of Caddie pickles, 5 qts of bread and butter pickles and put 1 qt of grated and 3 qts of sliced zucchini and yellow squash in the freezer.

Monday I put 2/3 of the peaches into 11 qts and bought 2 more lugs. 

Tuesday, I put up 6 more qts of peaches, 6 of Caddie pickles, 3 dills, 8 pints of zucchini relish and froze 2 qts grated yellow squash.  The zucchini looks better in the relish and we don't mind the yellow in bread.  For squash patties, it doesn't matter which kind.