Yesterday I was chopping vegetables for our soup and took a moment to admire the beauty of a purple cabbage.
Food.
It’s an important part of our life. In fact, much of our activities revolve around it. Each and every day we prepare our meals from scratch.
We grow food in our garden. We harvest it wild in the woods. We harvest it from local farms. We trade for it at farmer’s market. Being connected to our food makes us appreciate it even more.
We’ve been talking about what we want to grow in the garden this year, what we want to harvest… all our dreams for food adventures in 2012.
Sometimes we dream of all the food we would produce if we had more space (and more space with sunlight.) But we believe in growing where you are planted, and we have been planted in this spot that we do love dearly (and it keeps us plenty busy indeed.)
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Remember the harvest tally I had on the side of this blog throughout the summer? Well, I forgot to add things to it and lost track, but it was a fun record anyway. I kept it because we enjoyed seeing how we contributed to feeding ourselves. I figured since it’s now 2012, it’s about time I posted our Harvest Tally for 2011.
The first tally is what food we raised and harvested on the homestead. What we saved in jars came from various sources- the homestead, wildharvesting, local farms and farmer’s market.
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Homestead Harvest Tally:
.Nettles
.Butternut Squash
.Sunflower Seeds
.Runner Beans
.Chantrelles
.Lobster Mushrooms
.Huckleberries
.Sage
.Rosemary
.Oregano
.Catnip
.Lemonbalm
.Parsley
.Basil
.Blackberries
.Celery
.Cucumbers
.Blueberries
.Zucchini
.Duck
.Strawberries
.Chard
.Spinach
.Cilantro
.Arugula
.Collards
.Kale
.Lettuce
In Jars:
Canned:
.11 quarts green beans
.52 quarts applesauce
.26 quarts peaches
Dried:
.1 gallon nettles
.5 quarts blueberries
.1 quart zucchini
.1 pint green beans
.1 quart peaches
.1 quart figs
.1 and 1/2 gallons plums
.1 gallon elderberry apple fruit leather
.1 gallon plum fruit leather
.2 quarts raisins
In the Freezer:
.Grapes
.Plums
.Peaches
.Blueberries
.Strawberries
.Raspberries
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What did you harvest in 2011?
What would you like to harvest in 2012?
four different types of tomatoes are on the slate for this year. 🙂 Two faithfuls: Brandywines and Amish paste, but then I’m adding a Sundrop cherry and a Cherokee purple. I love this time of year, planning for the new garden and starting seeds in doors. 🙂 I’m going to try more season extending practices, a la Eliot Coleman. I only live on a tenth of an acre, so I sympathize with the fantasy of more land!
What a huge list of food! And I’m so impressed by the variety of produce you have grown.
I must take some more pictures of our garden so I too can remember what has worked well etc this year.
What a list! That represents a LOT of work. Good on ya!
What an amazing accomplishemnt mama! I love seeing lists like that! Your little homestead is magical 😉
Keep it up!
Blessings,
Samantha (Woodland Woolens)
wow!…your harvest was amazing.
I haven’t planned my allotment yet. I love sitting down to plan what I will grow and where.
Last year my harvest wasn’t great…this autumn I planted green manure and put down lots of compost, so I’m hoping for better things.xxx
Hi Taryn wow you harvested a lot of goodness , we here in tasmania are in summer , so at the moment we are harvesting….
Tomatos
peppers
chilli
zucchini
corn
basil
strawberrys
necterines
parsely
,and egg plants ,celery beetroot,potato’s,lettuces
and we just planted passionfruit tree, and cabbidges , and leeks ready for Autum!! oh and pumpkins boy do we have some of them on the vines we will be eating lots of pumpkin soup, pumpkin scones and everything else pumpkin in winter lol …
Happy growing!!
Heidi.