2020 Spring Planting Season

This year's spring planting season has been an eventful one to say the least. For as long as I can remember we have planted the second week of April. This year we went along with those same plans, only this year we've experienced some unusual weather. 

First we had nonstop rain, so much so that we could not plant any of our late winter plants or seeds.  Even though we didn't get the potatoes or onions planted in late winter like they were supposed to be, we decided to go ahead and get them in the ground (late) and pray for the best. 

Then we've had some unusually cold temperatures which have killed many of our plants. We've had to replant quite a bit of our tomatoes and peppers. We thought we'd lost our entire patch of sweet potatoes, but a fellow gardener informed us that they are growing just fine. Apparently the cold kills the leaves above ground, but the vines below are still growing. Lord willing that is the case, because sweet potatoes are one of my most favorite foods to grow.

We start the majority of our plants from seed either in recycled food containers or directly into the soil. We do buy some plants from the store such as tomatoes (not all of them, some tomatoes we start from seed), eggplants, peppers, and sweet potatoes. 

We've found that a lot of seeds that we'd normally plant directly into the soil do better if we plant them into small pots first and then once they get a good start, we transplant them into the soil. Those seeds include: yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkin, butternut squash, cucumber, some watermelon, and cantaloup.

Thankfully, even though we got our red and white potatoes into the ground late, they seem to be growing great. We planted four nice long rows, Lord willing we will have a nice harvest. We also have four great looking rows of green beans coming up. It's been a few years since we've had a decent harvest of green beans, but we're determined and we aren't giving up. We've yet to run out of them throughout the year, but we do have to ration them. It would be so wonderful to get a bumper crop of green beans this year.

We planted about a dozen rows of sweet corn. Our first planting had some skips in the rows so we've already gone back and replanted where some of it did not come up. We're hoping to put up ears of corn in the freezer as well as can corn. It's been a few years since we have had to can corn, but our supply is running low and it's time to restock. It's fairly labor intensive canning corn, but it's worth it once the job is done and we've got it to use whenever we want. 

We try to be as resourceful as possible with what we use in our gardens, with the intentions to keep the cost at a minimum. We stake our tomatoes and bell peppers using cages made with rhubarb fencing, a pole (sometimes we use a good thick stick), and zip strips. It may not be the most esthetically pleasing contraption, but it gets the job done. Our focus is to grow as much food as possible with the least amount of financial impact. 

We still have a good bit of planting left to do. It's still too cold for the plants that prefer hotter temperatures. In a couple of weeks we will be planting the watermelon, cantaloup, and okra. We will also plant another six or so rows of corn, to help stagger the harvest. From now until the end of August we're going to be full on, full-time gardening, picking, and preserving. Busy yet fulfilling days ahead to say the least.

To recap what we currently have planted:

Corn

Field Peas

Tomatoes

Bell Pepper

Hot Pepper

Red/White Potato

Sweet Potato

Pumpkin

Butternut Squash

Eggplant

Zucchini

Yellow Squash

Green Beans

Onions

Cucumbers

I try not to think about everything we have planned ahead of us in regards to the garden, because I would probably panic and have a melt down. In the long run it is a lot of work, but if we just remain focused on one harvest at a time, it doesn't seem like nearly as much work. Plus, when the main gardening season comes to a close and we have freezers and jars full of food to eat, it makes all the long days of hard work worth it.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Tomatoes for Days

This year's tomato harvest has been one for the books. We've canned a variety of different tomato based items including tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa. Even with all that we've canned, which is pushing 200 jars, we've still not met our goals for the year. Sadly, there's just only so many hours in each day and we are plum tuckered out! 

Mashing tomatoes with mama's monster masher is a prize job for many of my little ones. When I am making tomato sauce or spaghetti sauce, I do not peal my tomatoes. I simply quarter my ripe tomatoes and throw them in a large pot. As the tomatoes cook down we mash them to help speed up the process.

I use my stick blender for EVERYTHING! It is truly one of the best investments I've ever made for our homesteading and homemaking adventures. Once the tomatoes are cooked down enough (usually about an hour of cooking down and mashing) We bring out my stick blender and puree the tomatoes. All of the skins do not get pulverized, but enough of them do that it doesn't bother us. If you really wanted to, you could strain them to remove the few little peelings left behind.

When it comes to deciding what to can and when to can, I always start off with tomato sauce because I can use that in more meals than anything else. I typically fill up about 50 pint jars for pizza sauce (and no I do not can pizza sauce, it's just way to easy to whip up when needed that I spend my summer canning season devoted to other canning needs). After I have my pint jars filled then I move on to quart jars of tomato sauce. The quart jars of tomato sauce is used in soups and stews, which we eat a lot of since they can fill a large family on a strict budget! After I've got my desired amount of tomato sauce in quart jars, I move on to spaghetti sauce or salsa. That changes every year, It depends on which one we've used the most of throughout the past year.

I love my big stainless steel stock pots. They have paid for themselves over and over again. I didn't even spend a whole lot for them. The first one I found on clearance at Target many moons ago for $40, and the other one I found on Amazon for around $35. I did not invest in any high dollar stockpots because these work just as fine. 

This year we've had quite a few jars to bust throughout the canning process. Of course this is heart breaking after you've worked so hard to get the produce to that point, but it is just part of the process. I feel like we've had an abnormal amount of jars to bust because we moved the jars 4 times in 12 months (insert groan and eye roll). It seems we continue to be 'bit in the bottom' over buying that money pit of a house. But, I'm trying to stay focused on looking at the bright side and just be thankful we have the jars to can and the produce to put in them ~ BUT most importantly we no longer live in that house! 

All of these pictures were taken at different times throughout the summer gardening season. I love to watch our larder fill up and to see our hard work from beginning to end, it really helps to fuel me on to the finish line. 

As I shared in my last post, we have had to quit picking the bulk of the garden and have given so much away. I'm trying not to feel guilty over this, but it's super hard. Admitting you're NOT super woman is hard, lol. Even though we're scheduled to begin our homeschool year on August the 5th, I am hoping to get in a few more canning sessions. Lord willing I will be able to process the 30 pumpkins littering my storage room, a batch of mild salsa, a batch of tomato sauce, and a large batch of applesauce. I keep trying to remind myself that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we CAN do this! 

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. 

Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Super-Sized Watermelon

Our family absolutely loves watermelon, but they're kind of pricey bought from the store so I rarely buy them; which is why we try to grow our own. Some years we have an amazing watermelon harvest and others not so much, just like everything else we try to grow. But living in the south we typically harvest at least a few decent watermelons a year. This year we happened to grow our biggest ever watermelon ~ weighing in at a whopping 41 pounds!!

While it wasn't 'dead ripe' as my people like to say, it was the sweetest watermelon we've picked all season. We try to eat oldest to newest in order of when we picked our produce, but everyone was chomping at the bit to dig into this beast of a watermelon. 

I had to get a picture of the huge watermelon on our garden scale just so we had proof of it's size since the pictures don't always do it justice. 

While this isn't the monster watermelon we picked, it is one of our fresh picked watermelons that was  cut at the same time we were scooping out the 'big one'. Scooping out watermelon is a prize job each of my children highly look forward to doing. Which is also why I have 3 melon ballers. Yes, I could just as quickly slice the watermelon myself, but teaching my children to serve and be a positive contributing member to the family and homestead is a huge part of our goals in raising children.

This picture really shows how big our 41-pounder really was. It spanned the length of our island! And an added bonus to our super-sized watermelon was that it had minimal seeds. Picking out seeds for the little ones is not one of my favorite things to do, but I willingly do it because even the littlest ones of our family love watermelon. 

Yes, the bulk of growing your own food is intense work, but when little (big) rewards come rolling in like super-sized watermelons it makes all the work even more worth-while. It's so fun to watch the children's excitement watching the garden grow, picking the harvest, and then enjoying the fruit of our labors. It's a full-circle beautiful gift from the Lord. I'm so grateful for the privilege to be apart of such life-style, even when we're exhausted and ready to throw in the towel ~ we keep plugging away and God continues to honor our efforts even when we are so undeserving. 

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." 

Colossians 3:23 (ESV)

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

July Pickings

I can't believe we're already into July! As usual the older I get the faster the years go by. And here we are in the hight of another summer gardening season. We have been mightily blessed this year, especially through our summer garden. The harvest has been a good one and we have much to show for our efforts. We have even been able to bless others with our bounty. We probably have another month of hardcore picking and preserving, but I do see a small glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

It's funny how I rationalize the summer garden ~ I keep telling myself: I just have to get to the next crop harvested. So, looking ahead we've got more tomatoes for tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa, more bell peppers, eggplants, and field peas; the okra is just now starting to come in and then we'll have apples in August. The cucumbers, zucchini, and yellow squash are getting wormy so we've slacked in picking them (plus we've picked our fill of cucumbers, lol).

Yes, it's a heavy load, but our family is pulling together to get it all done. One day at a time, one picking at a time, and one preserving method at a time. It won't be long and it will all be finished; another year of harvesting and preserving the main summer garden will be under our belts. Soon the garden will be tilled and prepped for our fall gardens, and we will be able to slow down just a tad. Our fall gardens are much smaller, less work, and more for simply eating fresh home grown produce.

Growing your own food is a never ending cycle of planning, prepping, and toiling but when you see all your hard work before you it makes the whole process so worth while! Here's a few pictures to show y'all what we've been up to these days.

This is what my laundry room/storage room looks like. We are over-flowing with winter squash. Yes, it is early in the year for winter squash, but it just works better for us to plant them earlier in the year. We eat the butternut and spaghetti squash fresh, but I will be canning all the pumpkin soon. 

My husband planted six eggplant plants and all of them have thrived, producing tons of eggplants. I breaded and froze 20 one gallon bags of sliced eggplant to fry up later in the year for them to get ruined when one of my kiddos left the freezer door open {{sigh}}. We also had to cook up a bunch of meat that also thawed ~ it was not a fun situation, but we survived and have started over freezing the sliced and battered eggplant, thankfully we are having a bumper crop this year and have the extra eggplant. Trying to stay positive, lol.

The fig trees have just started producing right as we are wrapping up our blueberry picking. We were blessed to go straight from the blackberry harvest to the blueberries and on to the figs. We'll wrap up with the muscadines in August ~ fruit bearing bushes and trees are the best!

Our cherry tomato plants are currently at peak production. I think this has been our best year ever for cherry tomatoes and my kiddos love to pick them.

We're picking 5-10 gallons worth of field peas a couple of times a week. 

We're shelling the peas and freezing them until we get some free time to can. Leaving them in freezer bags in the freezer is okay, but we have limited freezer space and I'd rather can the peas to give us more room for freezing other produce that doesn't can well.

We've picked about 20 watermelons so far this year. Including one that was 41 pounds!!!

When you live on a bustling homestead, all available space is put to use ~ outside AND inside your home. We put in these mini window shelves in our master bath to hold tomatoes to ripen as well as a place for garden plant starts. It may not be the most attractive space, but it is a most practical space!

And that's a quick look of what we've got producing around our little homestead. I'd show y'all some pictures of our gardens, but they're a mess since right now our focus is harvesting and preserving not weeding. We only have so much time and energy; my husband works a minimum of 60 hours a week and we still have nine children we have to take care of. Keeping your head above water during the peak summer garden season is all about balance, prioritizing and recognizing you can't do it all. And even though we can't do it all, we try our best to be good stewards with all the Lord blesses us with including our garden harvests. 😊

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Freezing Bell Pepper

We are hot and heavy in the throws of the summer garden and to be honest we're all getting worn thin. But, we're doing the best we can to keep up. These days we're picking bell pepper by the 5 gallon buckets. Now there's plenty of meals and canning recipes that include bell peppers, so our favorite way to preserve our harvest of bell peppers is to freeze them. When we need them we just thaw them out and add them to recipes as needed. It really isn't remotely complicated to freeze bell pepper; just takes time to cut them and space to put them in a freezer.

My two girlies like to get out early in the mornings and pick the garden. 

I watched Lydia take several bell pepper straight to the bucket, but when I came over with my phone to take a video she refused to do it, lol ~ toddlers!

Tabitha is our resident bell pepper chopper and she can do it faster than anyone!

Once the bell peppers are all chopped they go into freezer bags and into the freezer until we are ready to add them to recipes.

And folks that's our bell pepper preserving operation in a nutshell. Pick. Chop. Bag. Freeze. Super easy and fairly quick, and it's a good job for the kiddos to do who can handle a knife. As y'all are probably getting the drift, our homesteading efforts are a family affair. Everyone gets in on the action. And for the most part most of them don't complain, they just get right to the tasks at hand and for that I'm grateful. While it may not always be easy, especially this time of year when we've been doing the garden nonstop for weeks on end ~ it's well worth the family bonding and life lessons my children are learning.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Easy Dehydrator Zucchini Chips

This time of year we have oodles of zucchini coming in. And to be honest, as much as I love the yummy green produce, I do eventually have my fill. So, then comes the fun part of trying to find some creative ways to not let our bounty go to waste. One way I like to preserve our crop of zucchini is to dehydrate them into chips. 

Now I must admit, most folks in our family do not care for the zucchini chips, but it's worth the effort to dehydrate them for those of us who do. It really isn't that complicated, it just takes some time. While we do not use our dehydrator as much as I had hoped, I am grateful we have it in times like these. I just hate being wasteful with our God-given harvest and even though I don't mind giving some of it away; ,I'd much prefer to preserve it in such a fashion that we can enjoy it during the off season.

We have the nine tray Excalibur dehydrator. It was one of those many pricy homesteading investments that have been well worth it. I don't really have any experience with any other dehydrator, but I can attest to the fact that the Excalibur is a phenomenal dehydrator and never gives us a bit of trouble. We actually keep it out year round on a table which holds our manual grain mill and Berkey water purifier (two more homesteading investments that I LOVE!). 

When it comes to large scale gardening and homesteading, I'm a firm believer it's hugely important to budget for tools which make the many tasks required easier and more efficient. We have made so many homesteading purchases over the years only to regret it because we didn't jump in with both feet. Going the cheap route does not always pay off!! Thankfully, we did not make that mistake when purchasing our dehydrator, I know we've had it for at least 7 years and it's still going strong with decent amount of use. I'm sure there are other quality dehydrators out there, but the Excalibur is the only one I can officially brag about ~ and they don't give me a dime to say so!

Easy Sea Salt & Garlic Zucchini Chips (Dehydrator version)

Ingredients

1. Zucchini thinly sliced
2. Sea Salt
3. Powdered Garlic

Directions

1. Place thinly sliced zucchini on dehydrating trays, making sure not to overlap
2. Sprinkle with sea salt and garlic powder (you may want to do this over a pan to prevent the spices from going every where)
3. Place dehydrator trays into dehydrator
4. Set dehydrator to 125 - 155 degrees (It is my experience that every dehydrator is different, but when I am wanting to make 'crispy' dehydrated foods I always use a much hotter setting and on my dehydrator I set it to 150 degrees for these zucchini chips)
5. Set timer for 12-24 hours (I check mine after 12 hours, but it typically takes 24 to get that crispy texture I prefer for my zucchini chips)
6. Once chips are your preferred texture store them in glass jars or ziplock bags

During the summer harvest season our dehydrator could easily run around the clock, but for safety concerns (not that we've ever had reasons to be concerned it's just I have an unusually weird fear of fires) we turn it off when we go to bed and just turn it back on when we wake up. We have never had any problems with the food we have been dehydrating by turning the dehydrator off and then back on.  

As for tastes and texture, I don't want to fool you that these will be the same as your store-bought potato chips ~ sorry y'all but they won't be. BUT, they will be an awesome tasty healthy alternative for when you get a hankering for something salty. When it comes to homesteading and growing your own food it's all about not wasting and acquiring a palette for foods you may not have otherwise enjoyed. Eating the food God made is about as close as we will get for the way He intended life to be, and nowadays we have awesome methods and tools to make that food unique and tasty. To me these easy sea salt & garlic zucchini chips are the perfect step in the right direction to avoiding overly-processed junk food AND to use up the summer surplus of zucchini.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Easy Summer Harvest Salad

When the summer garden gets to the point that you're swimming in all that wonderful delicious produce; finding ways to use it all up all can start to get complicated! I'm constantly trying to come up with new, and most importantly, simple ways to use the produce the Good Lord gives us. One of my favorite simple summer harvest meals is to make a Summer Harvest Garden Salad.

A typical 'garden salad' is made with lettuce, but to me this is a summer garden salad. In the summer there are no greens available, so that means I improvise with other veggies. The majority of the ingredients in this yummy salad is made with fresh ingredients picked from our garden. While the rest are easily found at your local grocer. It's a super affordable salad chockfull of wholesome ingredients that taste good and are good for you.

Summer Harvest Garden Salad

Ingredients 

(All of the ingredient amounts can be adjusedt to preference or what is available and how much you want to serve)

1. Diced cucumbers
2. Finely chopped tomatoes (I'm not a fan of chunks of tomatoes, lol)
3. Chopped bell pepper
4. Chopped onion
5. Chopped hot peppers (optional, but everything we eat has a little kick 😆)
6. Canned tuna, drained
7. Favorite salad dressing

Directions 

Combine all ingredients except dressing and chill in fridge. Top with dressing when ready to eat. I like to top mine with homemade Italian dressing.

Yes, it's a super simple recipe, but I know I personally enjoy searching out new recipes to make our meals come together more efficiently. So while it may not be fancy and complicated it is yummy and an awesome way to use up some of that produce you've worked so hard to grow and harvest. But, should you not be overflowing with a summer garden harvest, making this with store-bought ingredients works just as well!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Blueberry Picking with the Family

Well, the season for blueberry picking is upon us. Today, me plus eight of my crew went out to see if we could fill a 5 gallon bucket. We were only able to get about a gallon, but we also only had an hour because we had to get back to the house to can some bread and butter pickles and dill pickles. The good thing is when you've got private access to blueberry bushes you can get up early and head to the bushes to pick anytime; so we'll be doing that in the mornings for an hour or so until we've cleaned out the berry bushes.

The berries are nice and plump this year!

Little miss Lydia was picking blueberries like she'd been doing it for years. 

Titus picked a few but mostly he ran around chasing Samuel, lol.

Once Lydia had her fill of picking blueberries we put her in the stroller and Matthew pushed her around. He picked a few berries, but mostly just ate them. Seven is a tough age to balance picking and eating, lol.

Two of my main pickers. Tabitha & Joshua filling their bucket like there was no tomorrow!

Even our big teens get involved in the pickin'. Elijah is a great help and rarely complains about the work around the homestead.

Lucas found himself a good spot to hang out and pick, he was quite ambitious with his own 5 gallon bucket. 😁

And mama of course picking berries. I managed to pick a quarter of a bucket of berries, despite spending an exorbitant amount of time child training a certain 4 year old. {{sigh}}

These three escaped the blueberry 'patch' to find themselves some apples on the apple trees 

(more likely the unripe ones that fell on the ground ~ they'll learn eventually 😅).

We have a good many blueberry bushes on our own property, but these bushes we were picking from are located on our neighbor's property. Over the years we've reached out to people in our area asking if they had fruit producing trees and bushes that we could 'pick on halves'. Picking on halves means several different things but usually it means we pick them some of the fruit in return to pick and keep the rest. This especially works great with those 'senior saints' who planted those wonderful trees and bushes oh so many years ago but aren't able to pick from them any more. We've also enjoyed connecting and building relationship as well as gleaning great wisdom from many of these folks who let us 'pick on halves'. Plus it's an awesome way to fill your larder for nothing but sweat equity. 

My blueberry pickin' crew. 

The pursuit of a simple life has led our family to really think outside the box and get out of our comfort zones. Picking on halves, bartering, simply asking to borrow land and/or tools and equipment; you name it, there's a lengthly list of all the ways we've utilized to simplify our lives and build our homestead. I'm a firm believer that it's a simple life/homesteading frame of mind. All the land and money in the world won't get you back to basics, slowing down and appreciating the blessings you've been given. It's working hard and often doing without that often sparks the greatest ideas and the best inventions. 

So, while it may seem like we're just doing a family fun outing ~ picking blueberries ~ it's really so much more. It's instilling in my children a strong work ethic, it's building relationships, it's teaching them to know where food comes from and how God allows it to grow, it's real life, most importantly it's our life. Yes, it's a little different than most, but it's a great life and one I wouldn't change it for anything.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Preserving Corn the Easy Way

There's modern, FDA approved methods for preserving food and then there's old school, tried and true methods. Now, I do agree that it is best to use safe handling procedures when dealing with food,  but most of the time modern techniques are just overkill and time wasters. I do NOT have time to be doing extra work just to be doing it. This is going to be a super short and sweet post with a simple, no fuss one step guide to preserving corn on the cob.

When I first started preserving food I was totally clueless! I mean, seriously, 20 years ago my culinary skills began with spaghetti and ended with hotdogs. Fast forward, and there isn't much I can't cook or preserve, all thanks to some old timers who took the time to show me the ways of those who came before us. Preserving food used to be just what people did, especially women. Unfortunately, now days, many folks can barely prepare a decent meal (hey, no judgement from me, I used to be one of them!).

As a homesteader and a pursuer of the simple life it just comes natural to learn to cook, grow, and preserve as many different kinds of food items as possible. Corn on the cob was one of the first foods I learned to preserve. Why? Because it was so easy and in the south, it's fairly easy to grow corn. We do skin the kernels off the cob to can and freeze, but that's another lesson for another day. Today is all about having corn on the cob in the off season.

Are y'all ready for it? Well here ya go.....once the corn is shucked and silked, simply put the cobs in freezer baggies and put them in the freezer! Yep, it's that simple. You do NOT have to blanche the cobs!!! I've had folks say you must do this for a myriad of reasons and well it just isn't true. I've tried both ways and they taste the same, one just requires more work. You can also store them in vacuum seal bags if you're concerned about freezer burn; but honestly I've never had problems with the corn crystalizing.

When I'm ready to cook the frozen corn on the cob; I just throw them (frozen) in a pot of water and boil or our favorite way: in the Instant Pot. Using the Instant Pot to make corn on the cob is super simple too and makes the corn taste just as good as if it were picked fresh and eaten right away. I'll share that how-to another day, soon. But in the meantime, you can quickly and easily preserve your bounty of corn by throwing those bad boys in the freezer since it's so super easy, right?

With Love & Hope,
Jennifer

Honey Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

Well, now that everyone's gardens are bumping, there's the question: what to do with all that zucchini. There's really only so much you can do with it, but there are a few ways we make use of the tasty veggie.

My absolute favorite way to eat zucchini is sliced and sautéed in olive oil in a skillet on the stove. I seriously can eat it that way every.single.day, all year ~ too bad we haven't figured out how to grow zucchini year round.  😊 We also grill it, roast it, add it diced to soups and casseroles, and add it shredded to all sorts of baked goods. Today I'm sharing our favorite healthy twist to zucchini bread.

We've been grinding our own wheat for a long time, so it was just natural for me to create a zucchini bread recipe that took advantage of our healthy fresh ground wheat. I think it comes out of the oven just as moist as any refined flour version, maybe even better because there's an added nuttiness that comes from fresh ground wheat. I have made this recipe with regular store-bought whole wheat and it's just as good.

While we aren't a family who has completed omitted refined sugar from our diet, we do try to limit our intake. Which is why this zucchini bread recipe is made with honey. We are blessed with a local source for honey. We typically buy the 'seconds' which has some condensation in the honey. We've never had a problem with the honey so it just makes sense for us to purchase the discounted 5 gallon bucket. A 5 gallon bucket of local raw honey usually lasts us one year and we pay around $125 for the bucket.

Honey Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 cups shredded zucchini

2 eggs

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

Mix wet ingredients with zucchini, then add dry ingredients; stirring just until evenly incorporated. Divide into greased loaf pans ( I use regular bread size and mini loaf pans ~ which is perfect for portion control and gift giving). *Side note: I coat my bread pans with coconut oil and then dust them with whole wheat flour. Bake 50-60 minutes @ 300 degrees. I bake my mini loaves for 40 minutes. Remove bread from pan and let cool on cooling racks.

My recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread is super easy to make, taste great and freezes well. It's an awesome way to fill the freezer with a healthy snack for a later time. If y'all haven't caught on yet, I'm all about making life easier and more convenient if at all possible. Cooking once for multiple meals or snacks definitely makes my life easier. And knowing my family is eating healthy treats makes it all the better. I hope y'all enjoy this recipe and can use up some of your wonderful bounty of zucchini!

With Love & Hope,
Jennifer

How NOT to Get Overwhelmed with the Harvest

                   

                  

4 gallons of fresh picked bell pepper

This past Monday we found ourselves swimming in produce. Apparently after a couple weeks of some refreshing rain, our summer garden took a massive turn for the better! We had thought that everything was on the verge of dying and sadly we did lose our first big batch of green bean plants to the mini drought. Despite them prematurely dying we are grateful we were able to eat fresh from them several times, even if there was no canning like we had hoped. The corn also took a hit and instead of long, full ears of corn we only got a couple cobs from each stalk and they weren't the best we've ever had. But, that is the life of a homesteader and growing your own food; the outcome is all dependent on the Lord and what He sees fit to give.

It never fails no matter how well you plan your garden and stagger planting your crops; it's inevitable that at some point everything is going to hit in major quantities all at once. This is where you can quickly become overwhelmed!! NO worries, after years of experience I've got a list of steps to help you stay calm so you can quickly and efficiently conquer your awesome garden haul!!

This is what we were looking at Monday evening and I'm not going to lie, I was in a slight panic. But, thankfully I've been here before and after taking a quick assessment we began tackling what needed to be done to make the most of our blessed harvest.

On Monday we picked about 19 dozen EARS of corn. Most of which we left on the cob and put in the freezer. I'll be posting soon how we do this and how easy it really is to preserve corn on the cob! 

Next we had 6 gallons of cucumbers to come in adding to the 4 gallons we already had.

Then we picked 5 gallons of yellow summer squash.

A couple gallons of hot peppers.

Some zucchini & eggplant

A mess of green beans.

And a gallon of field peas or as I affectionately call them 'dirt peas'. 

We had a mighty fine blessing through our gardens to say the least, but now we had to figure out what we were going to do with it all. Here is how I typically handle a bumper garden haul like this:

1. Determine the produce which you collected the most; that one takes priority, unless it's corn. Corn must be done within 24 hours or it ruins. 
2. Decide what is going to be canned, frozen, dehydrated, or eaten fresh.
3. Wash what needs washing.
4. Put away what you plan to eat fresh in the fridge.
5. Fill the dehydrator with what you want to dehydrate (In this haul we dehydrated the peppers).
6. Chop and bag what you want to go in the freezer. (For this picking we skinned the corn, chopped the bell peppers, and shelled the peas all to go in the freezer ~ the peas we will can at a later time, but for now they can go in the freezer until we're ready to can them).
7. Prep for any canning you plan to do, such as the squash, it can be cut the night before or just simply make sure you have all the supplies you needs for whatever you're canning the next day.
8. If you got a super bumper crop coming in you can always try to sell some of it ~ we don't typically have good luck with selling, but you can always try.
9. Go in on halves: this means someone helps you process your produce using whatever method you're using in return to take some of the harvest home with them.
10. Give it away. After all it's better to give than to receive and I'd rather share our blessings with others than let it go to waste.

** And here's a BONUS TIP **

If you're going to be having a marathon canning day ALWAYS plan for simple meals throughout the day. I highly recommend putting something in the crockpot for dinner. Trust me when I say, you will not want to cook by the time folks are hungry for dinner!

Hopefully this simple guide will help y'all when it comes to dealing with the harvest. I like to remember it's all for just a short season. Maybe two months at the most when you feel like you eat, live, and breath the garden. And then all at once it's done and your larder is full and you can rest; enjoying the fruits of your labors throughout the fall, winter, and spring. And ironically, when the main summer garden rolls around again somehow you forget how much work it is to grow your own food. It's like the joy of enjoying the harvest in the off-season overshadows the reality of the time and effort you have to put into the main summer garden. It's a wonderful mercy from the Lord, that's for sure.  

Thankfully, our Monday harvest has all been taken care of and none of our produce went to waste. We're filling our larder one day at a time and I give all the glory to the Lord for giving us the harvest as well as the wisdom and strength to get it all done.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer