Garden Harvest

Overall, not the best year we've had with the gardens, but plentiful nonetheless.  Here's what we've been able to harvest, and what we've done with it so far:

At the beginning of August, we were able to pull up all of the garlic (which we planted last fall). At the same time that I pulled the garlic, we decided to do the onions too, since some of them were getting shaded out by the potatoes.  We laid them all out to cure on an old window screen in the old barn for a few weeks before trimming them up and bringing them into the house.

Garlic & Onions 8.24.11

Yesterday morning, we made three gallons of refrigerator pickles.  The cucumber and onions are from our garden, and the green peppers came from Derek's grandma, Ardath, and Arlys, his mom.  Refrigerator pickles are something that I've grown to enjoy again - the first year that Derek made them, he made so many that one day he found me standing in front of the fridge, crying, "Can I please throw these pickles out?  I can't eat another refrigerator pickle."

Refrigerator pickles 9.3.11

Also yesterday, Derek shredded 18lbs of cabbage to make into sauerkraut.  Now, it is fermenting in the crock for at least a month before it will be ready to can.  He shared a little bit of the cabbage with me to make into coleslaw (which turned out great with some shredded carrots, also from the garden, and one of our red onions).  The bowl of cabbage is pictured next to Derek's Popeil "Kitchen Magician" shredder - the best 50 cents he ever spent at a garage sale.

5 lbs of shredded cabbage and the Kitchen Magician  9.3.11

It was a tough year for our tomatoes - only a few plants have survived.  Apparently, you shouldn't plant tomatoes in the same place that you have had potatoes within the last two years.  Oops - we didn't know that.  But we have had some, and I've been making them into homemade tomato soup and spaghetti sauce for meals.  Oh, and we've been eating lots of BLT sandwiches and fresh salsa.  Today, we canned a small batch of tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce 9.4.11

Derek's mom shared some apples with us that she got from a coworker, and this morning we made and canned applesauce for the first time.

Applesauce 9.4.11

Although they are not pictured, I should also mention that we have also been enjoying lots of sweet corn on the cob, and fresh carrots.  Tonight, we had kabobs on the grill with our farm raised chicken, onions from our garden, and green peppers from Arlys.  It is so much fun to be able to cook food straight from the garden for supper!

What's left in the garden?  We still need to dig our potatoes, and the rest of the carrots. And, we'll have to see what amounts from my pumpkin patch - it's out of control.  I ONLY planted eight pumpkin seeds, but it was enough to take over an entire garden bed and a large portion of the backyard.  In fact, we found pumpkins growing six feet up in the sweet corn that was planted in the bed next to it, and we also ended up with some giant orange cucumbers that must have cross-pollinated with the pumpkins.  I learned my lesson!