After last week’s hardships with the turkeys, I will spend this blog writing about better things. But I must start with a side note.
We are not having great successes with our gardens on this, our first year at the farm. Having said that, my expectations were low, so anything we can harvest is a bonus. Next year, we will have more time and a better idea of what is needed to prepare the earth and plant better crops.
Herbs! We have lots of herbs. Chives, mint, basil and Thai basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage and coriander. The coriander bolted a while back. This happens to me every year. I love the stuff but it seems to get ahead of me. The rest of the herbs provided us with a great variety of flavours all summer long. Some went to flower but I don’ care. I find some of the flowers taste just a good as the leaves and they are very pretty in salads.
I dried a mixture of rosemary, thyme, oregano and basil and placed them all together in jars for winter time. That will take care of tomato sauces.
We are drying a few onions for fun. They have not all grown to their full potential but we wanted to check the process out. We are letting them dry in the open for a few weeks. This will allow the skins to dry and help preserve them through the winter.
We also started digging up some potatoes. We let them dry for a few days, dusted off the dirt and will cover them in sand for the winter. The cold storage is a little warm at the moment, so we are waiting to bring anything into it. Not having spent a winter here yet, I can only assume that it will cool in the fall.
Since the chickens ate all our berries, Katie and I went to our local farmer’s market to get sun warmed strawberries. Made the jam as soon as we got home. I didn’t do anything fancy, as I am prone to do. Did a basic sugar and berry jam that I then processed.
Next came dehydrating the blueberries and a few strawberries. I love porridge in the morning and like to add dried fruit to add a little sweet tartness. I plan to dry as many fruit and berries as possible so that we don’t run out before next year.
Took a dozen or so beets from the garden. They are still a little small but I wanted to boil some for a good snack. I will wait for the rest to get a bit bigger so that I can make pickled beets.
I then made yogurt. I haven’t done it regularly in years and it took me a few batches to get it right. For the first time I strained in through cheesecloth. I can’t say I’ll do it again. It did make the yogurt less lumpy but it also wasted some. I don’t mind a few lumps since I mix it with other things, like a little honey, maple syrup or even more dried fruit.
Doesn’t look like much, but the taste is soooo fresh!
A friend grew amazing zucchini and gave me one. By the time I prepared it to make zesty zucchini relish, it gave me over 8 cups! So, now we also have a new relish to try. It should sit a few weeks before we have some.
So much chopping 
The smell is amazing 
Now we wait a few weeks
Then we’ve had Roma tomatoes ready to freeze. So every few days, I parboil them, peel, freeze, then transfer to freezer safe containers. I try to make enough each time for one full recipe of either Italian sauce, chili or whatever I decide to make with them.
All in all, it was a productive week in the kitchen. I’ll be posting some of my recipes on our recipe page soon.
It feels like fall in encroaching on summer already. School starting doesn’t help that feeling. Scheduling hundreds of kids for their music lessons is a huge task! Thank goodness for Katie.
With whatever time mother nature dictates I have left before the cold arrives, I will prune and clip and clean the grounds. That’s what makes me most happy at the moment. Having been here for a little over 4 months now, I am starting to see what I want the yard to look like. Lush greenery is great but a good trim can make things feel airier.
This is still the best place in the world!
Unruffled Farms 