Tomato Time

As summer rolls in and winter fades away, the garden takes center stage in our farm life. Raised beds to fill, plots to till, and most importantly plants to plant. Once the seeds are in, winter finally feels like it's over. And when green leaves pop up, summer begins to feel just around the corner.

Last weekend, we spent the finest hours of the day outside, moving raised beds to their new home (closer to the house), wheelbarrowing manure from here to there, and the best part of all- sinking our hands into cool dirt and patting into place the tomato plants in the hopes of nurturing them into tall, strong plants bearing large, juicy fruit. 

Our compost is mostly just hay and horse poo, but thrown in underneath the manure in our raised beds is a thick layer of unusable mohair from shearing earlier in the week, kitchen scraps, and old paper sacks that were taking up too much space, hopefully providing our plants with the nutrition they need to grow strong and sturdy.

Aw, just look at those neers.

As the days go on, the garden and raised beds fill up. We have growing: corn, okra, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, cucumbers, peas, spinach, carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, salad, peppers, eggplants, onions, and a handful of herbs. We try to provide for ourselves as much as we can, depending very little upon stores.

Something we discovered with our garden last year was to not overdo it. We had so many plants so close together that it was overwhelming. Squash plants tangled across the walkway so that we couldn't walk around or get to the food. All 108 tomato plants ripened at the same time with thousands of fruits so that it was impossible for us to make use of them all. This year, we decided to learn our lesson, and have dramatically decrease our plant count. We have only 8 tomatoes.

As summer comes closer and closer, work keeps piling on. So much needs to be done. But we know that as work increases, so do the profits- the delicious food and the warm satisfaction and contentment that we know we are doing good, honest work.

Day of the Corn

Look at all that corn!

It probably doesn't seem like it, but there's about 4 bushels there.

We spent only an hour shucking the corn, and I say only because we pretty much spent the time playing with the goats and sheep. We had let them into the front yard with us so we could monitor them and throw them the shucks.



Betty steals from the chicken scraps.



After a while (a very, very small while) the critters came to us for the shucks, and demanded to eat the shucks by our feet and not those thrown aside for them.

Then, they discovered the chicken scrap bowl where we had dropped green tops.



Dodge slobbering corn all over the place.



It went down hill from there. We fed scrap corn directly to the critters, they were in our laps, and were helping themselves by eating shucks as we shucked them. But it was all good fun any way, and we began to "dress" any nearby victims in corn shucks and silk. 



Caspian wearing a shuck. What a cutie!



Angus in a silky 'do.

Caspian wearing silk.

 It wasn't too long before all the corn was shucked, and we brought it in.

Then, the real work began.

Corn was washed, trimmed, and- no clue what it's called- removed of kernels.

We pressure canned a final total of 5 half-pints, 36 pints, and five quarts. That's just under 9 gallons of corn kernels. We only had one canner going and finished at five am the next morning. Mind you, I then slept till noon.

It doesn't sound like a lot of work. I know it doesn't. But it took all day, and we have at minimum a years supply of corn on our shelves. I'm just thankful for this corn, for knowing where it came from, for knowing what it took, and for being able to do it ourselves.



Freshly shucked corn.