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Harvest Log
2 Oct 2021 04:33 pmIf I could actually eat what is considered a good diet, each meal would have half a plate of greens, a quarter of the plate fruit, and a quarter protein. I'm not that person yet as you all breathe a sigh of relief. A full third is suppose to be vegetables rich in sulfur like broccoli. Due to our wonderful air quality, all of us are sensitive to sulfurous vegetables. Broccoli and cauliflower, which I love, do not love me back. For the moment, I am fermenting cabbage to get around that problem. I digress But if I did eat this way, I would need around 2,000 pounds of vegetables to feed my family. of 3 adults. Lettuce is light. Broccoli is heavy. It kind of balances out. Another way of approaching a garden is to look at portion size. Basically, try to eat something you've grown every day. It makes it kind of hard to figure out what proportion of your food that you've grown. I set a goal of 500 pounds. I am close to 300 pounds, including both fruits and vegetables. If 2,000 lbs is a real number then I grew 15 % of my food. 300 pounds sounds like a lot, but it's not really. Once the plum tree, pear tree, and apple tree are producing, then I could easily be producing over 500 pounds. But not yet. 500 would be a quarter of my food. Personally, I think if I actually produced 2,000 lbs, I would be doing nothing else except farming. That's a LOT of work. I enjoy doing other things.
This week's actual cumulative total is 265 pounds. There's a lot more to harvest. Succession planting has been working okay. The critters have done a bit of damage. Some crops were lost. Summer's heat was brutal. I stopped planting lettuce. Carrots were a crop failure. I think the mice eat the carrots (or perhaps the bugs). I hear the mice every once in a while. There's a rabbit and a ground hog. Perhaps as many as five deer hangout behind my garage. I was very leery of deer ticks earlier this year. The deer and neighborhood cats love laying in the mint and the tansy to ease their flea bites. I don't blame them. The woodchuck only nibbled on 2 or 3 squash which I composted. It knows I'm gunning for it and runs off into the neighbor's yard (empty house). Periodically, a skunk comes through at dusk. The birds ate all of the elderberries, goumi berries, red currants, and a lot of the blueberries. So, yes, critters.
One more milestone for the week, the little AC unit has been removed from the basement window. It must officially be autumn! No leaves are turning yet. The mulberry leaves are usually the first to drop. However, the rose leaves did not give out as much pigment in my dye bath. My yarn variegated a lot. Soon it will be time to put away the pails of color, drain the water barrels, and winterize the dye studio. In case you are wondering, ice will cause the spigots of the rain barrel to be ruined. Dye buckets that freeze to the ground usually crack. Many times, the seal that joins the bottom to the sides of the pail will separate. Nothing worse than finding expensive indigo all over the ground and none in the bucket. I overwinter my buckets in the coal cellar. Mordants get poured into jugs with lids and labelled. If it's unseasonably warm in the winter, I will run dye baths on the camp stove outside. Usually it's purchased items, like madder or cochineal.
There is going to be a lot of roast pumpkin and butternut in our diet this winter. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin with wild rice and fig jam as a side dish, and harvest loaf. It works best with chocolate chips but there are options. Here's the recipe:
Harvest Loaf
1/2 cup butter or oil
1 cup sugar or 3/4 c. honey
2 eggs
1 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 c. cooked, mashed pumpkin or winter squash
3/4 c. chocolate chips (or raisins, or chopped dates)
3/4 c. chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
Cream butter and sugar; beat in eggs; alternate dry ingredients with the pumpkin, blending well. Lastly stir in your chocolate chips or raisins and nuts. Pour into well-greased loaf pan. We prefer a bundt pan so that the center is cooked through without burnt edges. It depends on your oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 to 75 minutes. Use a tooth pick to see if the center is cooked through. Allow to cool a bit before removing from the pan.
Note to self: Buy chocolate chips and pecans.
We've been filling up the cupboard with canned items, mostly tomato sauce. Earlier this year, I did make jam and jelly. Chrono made marmalade. My last jelly turned out more like a fruit butter. I mixed gooseberries with raspberries. The freezer has way too many things for wine making. I am behind on that while waiting for the fruit flies to die off. There are pears and mulberries. I might have enough for black currant too. That's another day. Meanwhile, we are hardening off all the squash and pumpkins before storing them in crates. Damaged squash will be eaten soonest. This one lost its stem.
Ripening by a sunny window
Storing for winter in a cool dark place
More will be joining these soon
Of the pumpkins and butternut you see, only a few vines were planted by me. I put out seed for the squirrels and they did the work for me. Normally I don't plan to have a third of my food be pumpkins. I'll take what I can get.
This week's actual cumulative total is 265 pounds. There's a lot more to harvest. Succession planting has been working okay. The critters have done a bit of damage. Some crops were lost. Summer's heat was brutal. I stopped planting lettuce. Carrots were a crop failure. I think the mice eat the carrots (or perhaps the bugs). I hear the mice every once in a while. There's a rabbit and a ground hog. Perhaps as many as five deer hangout behind my garage. I was very leery of deer ticks earlier this year. The deer and neighborhood cats love laying in the mint and the tansy to ease their flea bites. I don't blame them. The woodchuck only nibbled on 2 or 3 squash which I composted. It knows I'm gunning for it and runs off into the neighbor's yard (empty house). Periodically, a skunk comes through at dusk. The birds ate all of the elderberries, goumi berries, red currants, and a lot of the blueberries. So, yes, critters.
One more milestone for the week, the little AC unit has been removed from the basement window. It must officially be autumn! No leaves are turning yet. The mulberry leaves are usually the first to drop. However, the rose leaves did not give out as much pigment in my dye bath. My yarn variegated a lot. Soon it will be time to put away the pails of color, drain the water barrels, and winterize the dye studio. In case you are wondering, ice will cause the spigots of the rain barrel to be ruined. Dye buckets that freeze to the ground usually crack. Many times, the seal that joins the bottom to the sides of the pail will separate. Nothing worse than finding expensive indigo all over the ground and none in the bucket. I overwinter my buckets in the coal cellar. Mordants get poured into jugs with lids and labelled. If it's unseasonably warm in the winter, I will run dye baths on the camp stove outside. Usually it's purchased items, like madder or cochineal.
There is going to be a lot of roast pumpkin and butternut in our diet this winter. Pumpkin soup, pumpkin with wild rice and fig jam as a side dish, and harvest loaf. It works best with chocolate chips but there are options. Here's the recipe:
Harvest Loaf
1/2 cup butter or oil
1 cup sugar or 3/4 c. honey
2 eggs
1 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 c. cooked, mashed pumpkin or winter squash
3/4 c. chocolate chips (or raisins, or chopped dates)
3/4 c. chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
Cream butter and sugar; beat in eggs; alternate dry ingredients with the pumpkin, blending well. Lastly stir in your chocolate chips or raisins and nuts. Pour into well-greased loaf pan. We prefer a bundt pan so that the center is cooked through without burnt edges. It depends on your oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 to 75 minutes. Use a tooth pick to see if the center is cooked through. Allow to cool a bit before removing from the pan.
Note to self: Buy chocolate chips and pecans.
We've been filling up the cupboard with canned items, mostly tomato sauce. Earlier this year, I did make jam and jelly. Chrono made marmalade. My last jelly turned out more like a fruit butter. I mixed gooseberries with raspberries. The freezer has way too many things for wine making. I am behind on that while waiting for the fruit flies to die off. There are pears and mulberries. I might have enough for black currant too. That's another day. Meanwhile, we are hardening off all the squash and pumpkins before storing them in crates. Damaged squash will be eaten soonest. This one lost its stem.
Ripening by a sunny window
Storing for winter in a cool dark place
More will be joining these soon
Of the pumpkins and butternut you see, only a few vines were planted by me. I put out seed for the squirrels and they did the work for me. Normally I don't plan to have a third of my food be pumpkins. I'll take what I can get.
