Pumpkin Patch

This weekend we went to a local pumpkin patch. The girls loved pulling the wagon, walking through the patch, and picking out pumpkins. We hope to carve a couple of them this weekend.

They are growing up so much. They are little girls, not toddlers anymore. Here they are last year at the pumpkin patch. 

And this was Clara in 2012. For some reason I don't have Esther in a picture at the pumpkin patch.

 

Farm Bounty

Our big summer garden has been mostly "done" for a while. We had a  few first year garden issues, but overall the garden produced well for us. We had a mild summer, which helped. In addition to eating a lot of fresh veggies in the summer, we sell some, give some away, and then can/freeze/store a lot to use throughout the year. We have recently starting harvesting some of our fall garden produce also. The garden should be better next year and years to come as we get the soil in better shape over time.

We canned about 20 quarts and 30 pint jars of green beans, 30 pints of spaghetti sauce, 30 pints of salsa, 10 jars of hot sauce, 10 jars of plain tomato sauce, and 10 jars of pickled peppers. We also froze about 40 packages of corn, some on the cob and some off. And we froze some summer squash to use in soups and stews this winter.

Green beans, spaghetti sauce, pickled peppers

Salsa

We didn't weigh them, but we also harvested some potatoes (about 2 milk crates worth). Red, white, and purple ones. We also have been harvesting sweet potatoes recently (at least a milk crate full).

We planted a bunch of winter squash, but the squash bugs killed it before we were able to harvest much. We did get a few butternut squash before the vines died.

The butternuts that made it to harvest.

We recently discovered two apple trees in front of our rental trailer. Our tenants used and gave away a lot of them, but we were able to harvest a few gallons of apples. Josh made 6 jars of applesauce from them. We can't wait until our fruit trees and berries are producing so we can preserve more fruit for the year.

Applesauce

We also had a steer butchered a couple of months ago. We split it with Josh's parents, so we have a couple of hundred pounds of beef in the freezer too.

Beef and corn

For our first year on this farm we feel like we did pretty well on producing food for ourselves. We hope to do better in future years. We are hoping to add pigs, butcher chickens, and turkey as early as next year. We also hope to increase the amount of food we sell in the future also. It is nice to have fresh produce and to know where you food comes from.