We had a rough year here at the farm. We were late planting, the deer kept attacking, the weather wasn't cooperative. All gardeners fight bugs and weeds.

However, between the bees and certain prolific varieties we planted, we were able to harvest a ton of crookneck squash and zucchini (the plants are still producing), loads of jalapenos, many cabbages and bunches of kale (still have lots of those in the field), lots of good sized pumpkins and other winter squash, onions, herbs, tomatoes, sweet peppers, pepperoncini, a few heads of broccoli, some celery, several eggplants, snow peas, we even got one little watermelon.

Tonight, we harvested at least 150 correction: 125 pounds of potatoes with more still in the ground that we will get later (we ran out of daylight), which is about 50% of the amount we use annually. That was after coming home with about 10 pounds of champagne grapes from a fellow parishioner's garden and this afternoon's gleaning of about 100 pounds of apples from a former commercial orchard whose owners allowed us homeschooling families to pick all we wanted from noon to 5:00 today. We got there around 2:30 and headed home after two hours. These were non-sprayed apples, about 22 varieties. They were going to charge $0.40 a pound, which is an amazing deal anyway, but this morning, they decided to let people pick for free as long as we all estimated what we picked and told them.

The children had a great time eating apples and filling their bags over and over again. We were all sticky from apple juice, our legs were a little torn up from some blackberry vines, but we had a great time. I'll get pictures up as soon as I can.

This year was not as successful as we would have liked, but we've learned a lot, and we'll apply it next year. Little by little, we hope to expand our food growth so that we grow, raise or glean 75-85% of our own food. We have free sources for blackberries, blueberries and crabapples, this year apples, too. The chickens and ducks provide all our eggs and a little of our meat (very little, they're too valuable for eggs), we're almost at the point where the bees will provide all of our honey (and we are moving to using more honey as our sweetener of choice), we'd like to get turkeys, and someday move to sheep and cattle for both dairy and meat. We will continue to expand our crops and still hope to get our fruit and nut orchard started. We even have the place set out. Much of the rest we are able to trade for or buy from local farmers and gardeners, including our meat and raw milk. It's a pretty good life, really.

It's been a steep learning curve for our family, being town/city mice, but the reward is amazing. Many of our meals lately have been made entirely or almost entirely with food we've grown/raised/gleaned. If you count the food we obtain locally, it's nearly all of our meals. It is so fun to see the fruit of our labors in that way. Of course, we're working on food storage methods, also, so we can preserve as much as we can.

If you've ever thought of growing your own, I would encourage you to do it. Even if it's just a small herb garden or a few heads of lettuce, even a pot of tomatoes. There is nothing like eating what you have grown yourself. We will have much to be thankful to God for this year from our little harvest. We're a little closer to our little dream of having a farm.

Labels: Family, Homesteading, Tales from the Kitchen