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Hi Everyone,
Gardening is more than just preparing the soil, planting seeds, watering and weeding—it also includes harvesting. Once an item is harvested it is either eaten right away, or preserved for later use. Strawberries can be frozen or turned into jams, green beans are frozen or canned, herbs are dried and squash and zucchini are eaten fresh or hidden in baked goods. When it comes to carrots most people are used to going to the grocery store and buying a one pound bag or a five pound bag of carrots and storing it in their crisper drawer for a week or so and then buying another bag when that first one has been consumed—but what if you grow your own year’s supply of carrots? We have not bought carrots for years. The only part of the carrot I buy is the seed. I am sure that I plant over a thousand carrots every year. I start a batch in the fall and harvest them in December, and then I start a batch in December and harvest them in April or May. The fall batch we store in sand all year in the fridge, but the spring batch we do one of three things with them. First I dehydrate a bunch of them so that when I am making stock late at night and do not feel like digging in the sand to find a carrot; I can just pull out a hand full of dried carrots and toss them in the stock pot. Then we can some with onions and chicken broth—which can then be used to make a creamy carrot soup (just heat and puree) or to add chunked carrots to a quick chicken noodle soup. If we have an abundance of carrots—we sell some. The seeds that I planted in December didn’t sprout very abundantly, and when I harvested them I only got one large bag. Sometimes it seems that the hardest part of gardening isn’t keeping up with the weeds, but actually taking care of the food that you harvest. Last fall when I harvested the red potatoes I forgot about them and we never got them canned—they did manage to become a part of two of our Farm to Table Dinners (as roasted potatoes and as potato soup). The last basket of them has one foot long sprouts on them, and it looks like I am going to be growing my first summer crop of potatoes. Not sure how well they will grow—but I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Well, a few weeks ago we harvested the spring batch of potatoes and the spring batch of carrots. I have no intentions of letting them go to waste—so last Monday I tackled half of the carrots—I dehydrated them. I wasn’t sure that I was actually going to get around to them for it took me until 3:30 to finish making my Virus Salve, Relief Salve, Lotion Bars and getting the kitchen all cleaned up. Mom said that she thought it was too late for me to start the carrots, and I almost agreed—until I realized that I had about an hour and a half before I needed to cook dinner and if I put away the carrots I would have some down time to do nothing. I decided that I would rather do something—so I dumped half the bag of carrots in the sink and put the other half back into the fridge. I then washed and peeled them all—which took until almost 4:30, and then I ran them through the hand cranked food processor which sliced them. Then I put them in the dehydrator to dry. I finished right at 5:00 and was able to start on dinner in a timely fashion.
Late that night company showed up. Travis and his Mom returned so that Travis could finish the work on our hot water heater. His Mom found out that I had done carrots and she offered to help me do more on Tuesday. I almost took her up on it—but alas I did not have enough broth made up to can them. I didn’t totally deny her the chance to help me—for I gladly took her up on her peeling help, she just did potatoes instead of carrots. While we milked the cows Tuesday morning, she was in the kitchen peeling potatoes. When we were done milking, I had kefir to bottle and so Mom headed to the kitchen to start canning the potatoes. I joined her later. In the end we had 32 pints of potatoes canned up in pint sized jars. When we can potatoes we cut them in one inch cubes—any smaller and they turn to mush and taste terrible. Then we process them at 10 pound of pressure in a pressure canner for 35 minutes (40 minutes for quarts). Potatoes canned this way are so versatile: you can dump them out and rinse them off and make potato salad with them; or you can heat them up smother them in herbs and butter, or you can heat them up and turn them into mashed potatoes, or you can rinse them off and fry them in butter with salt and pepper until crisp. When potatoes are canned they last for years—when fresh they only last a few months before they start to sprout.
Come Thursday I grabbed a big basket and headed to the Market Garden where I have parsley, sage, thyme, and Winter Savory growing—in big patches. It is time to harvest the herbs before the summer heat moves in. I have already harvested a lot of parsley—and I actually have tons more to harvest, but I wanted to start with the Winter Savory. We love to cook with this herb—it is actually my Mama’s favorite (besides thyme). Finding Winter Savory is a different story, and growing it can be even harder. I bought a pound of it years ago, but when it was gone I couldn’t find another source for more. I tried growing it many times but the plants either died or the seeds refused to sprout. Last fall the Lord was very merciful for the seeds sprouted. I planted them in the Market Garden Tunnels and they have thrived. So I picked a whole big basket full of Winter Savory cuttings and filled all but six trays of the dehydrator with them. I guess they filled up 12 trays. Then I went to the Cottage Garden and picked a basket of plantain leaves. I didn’t get a large harvest because the chickens demolished the plants when they were first ready to harvest, then the cold set in, then the bugs arrived. The leaves are just now starting to produce some useable leaves. I use plantain (the weed) in a few of my herbal salves.
Come Saturday the Winter Savory was finally dried crisp enough to remove the leaves from the stems and gathered into a bowl. When I was all done I rejoiced to have filled a whole half gallon jar full of the aromatic, hard to find and grow—Winter Savory. It is truly a culinary treasure in my herb closet. With the trays in the dehydrator empty I then returned to the Cottage Garden to harvest marjoram. This marjoram is more like oregano to me; it is far superior to the marjoram that you can buy in the herb bottles in the grocery store. It is actually my favorite herb to cook with—besides parsley.
I didn’t get to head to the garden Saturday afternoon as soon as I wanted to—because Papa called just 30 minutes after he left to take the delivery to Gainesville. He had made it to the gas station and then the van wouldn’t start back up. Mama had to take him the truck so that he could transfer all the coolers into the truck and head on his way—albeit he was now twenty minutes late. Mama stayed with the van and called my brother-in-law to come and help. He was able to get some jumper cables and get the battery charged up enough to start the van and drive it back to the mechanic (we had just got it back last Tuesday night). A new battery was installed today, and hopefully that was the only problem (an old battery). So once I had made all the customer phone calls to tell them Papa was late, tried calling the mechanic, and took care of three customers here on the farm—I then made it to the garden. I was clipping the last sprigs of marjoram when Mama and Papa got home.
Papa was finally able to finish putting the new roof on the chicken tractor on Thursday. Therefore on Friday all the new laying hens were finally able to be moved out to pasture. Then someone came by Friday afternoon and this afternoon to clean out all the chicken compost. While it would be good for our pastures—sometimes you just do not have enough time to do everything, and since we have 250 laying hen chicks ready to go into the Poultry Barn until they grow up and start laying eggs, we had to do what was quickest and easiest for us. Tomorrow we should be able to get fresh bedding laid out in the Poultry Barn and the 250 chicks moved out of the brooder house. They will be grateful for fresh bedding and a lot more room to flap their wings. In a few more weeks they will be big enough to be let out to roam in the compost yard. Farm life—it is always changing, yet always the same.
P.S. I just got back from doing the evening chores for Papa. I had to move the sheep to a new pasture and I caught sight of a cowbird landing on a sheep—but that sheep was not too pleased that a cowbird was on her back. She kept turning her head from one side to the other trying to reach the bird on her back. The cowbird finally flew away and landed on another sheep—who didn’t mind one bit that she had picked up a hitchhiker. She moseyed around the pasture eating with bird in tow. It wasn’t long before the cowbird jumped onto another sheep and road around with her for a little while. Then it jumped off into the grass—I guess it eyed a worm. When the cowbird was done looking through the grass it summoned another Sheep Taxi and road around on its back. As I sat there watching I could hear the roosters crowing in the background, and the sheep munching on the grass as they walked past me. A little ways off I could hear the slurping of one of the sheep as she stopped to get a sip of cool fresh water, and the sweet melody of a meadowlark in the distance. I never can find the meadowlark, but when I do catch a glimpse of the bright yellow chest with the dark black bow tie it is always a beautiful sight for my eyes to behold. I stopped by the pond and the first thing I heard was the kersplat of the frogs leaving the water’s edge as they dove into the water to disappear from sight. I saw some raccoon tracks in the mud around the edge of the pond. As I stood there gazing I heard the thud, thud of a woodpecker. I slipped over toward a dead willow tree to get a closer look and saw a little red headed woodpecker moving around the tree. He had made quite a few holes in the tree. After a little bit he flew off—but landed above me in the Cyprus tree I was standing under. Then the female woodpecker flew in to join him. I then headed back to the house. The chores were done and I had spent enough time enjoying my surroundings—but first I just had to stop and eat some blackberries that were growing around the pond. They were sweet and juicy—but not as big as those growing near the milking parlor!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare