What a summer. I had a trade show in the last week of July that took 6+weeks of prep and the a week at the show and 3 weeks of follow up…Yes, folks that my summer…all 10 weeks of it. On the heels of that, I taught a class in how to raise rabbits for meat! So a week of yard work to pretty up the place, preceded that. The long and short of it, it was a great productive summer. I’m glad I went to the show and the class was great fun.
I had to drop some things, and the blogging was one of those. Fall is here, the commitments are behind me and while I’m staring a busy season in the face, I feel good and am ready to hit the ground running.
Last week the canning began. 102 quarts of sliced peaces, 69 pints of Peach salsa, 12 half pints of Peach butter, all shared with my good friend Jessica. That took 46 man hours to complete. The day after that was done, I picked 150 pounds of tomatoes and the following day canned them into 51 quarts of diced tomatoes, and 9 quarts of juice! That was from 10 am until 2:30 am on my own. Tomatoes can up much faster than Peaches. Photos are coming from my canning, but since I didn’t take any during the process, I am going to show you my finished storage cabinet…when it’s finished.
Phew. That is a great start to the winter stocking up. I have enough apple sauce for the year, as I over canned last year. I did receive a request for dried apples for snacks, which I will do up, but the only big caning left is the end of the month when the Bartlett Pears are ready. I do plan on some fun canning this year, a little chutney, some relish, that sort of thing, and hopefully I’ll tell you all about it when I get there.
I wanted to put in a fall garden, and it didn’t happen until today. Interestingly enough, I checked the blog history to find that September 5 was when the 2010 fall garden was planted! In light of this, I opted to not plant carrots, as they didn’t have time last year, and likely won’t again this. I did plant from seed: radish, beets, and spinach. Bought some starts for kale, lettuce, broccoli and leeks. In the bed from the summer, that will stay until it’s done, arugula, leeks, basil, prize choy and swiss chard!
In addition to getting them in the ground, I built their homes!! I took a class on building this sort of thing last year, but didn’t have time to do it for the 2010 fall garden. I added water storage to the plan, so that should increase temps a bit too. The hoops were from Cavaretta Gardens. The frame for the bed is 4′x8′ made from 2×8″. They were made a couple years ago, and were still in place. The frame is 2×4 with metal brackets in the corners for stability, pipe brakets to hold the pipes in place, 2 large hinges on the back, 3 mil plastic over the top, and a handle on the front. There is a 2×2 piece that holds the hoops together on the top, that is also secured with the pipe clips. It allows for easy access to the veggies, and should shed the snow just fine. More catching up to come. It’s nice to be back! I hope you had a good summer too!
You’re really amazing! Many compliments on your accomplishments. Tonight, on my side, we’ll have our first pizza with homegrown tomatoes. And today James got his 3rd and last cast…
Those are awesome! Is the whole setup from Cavaretta Gardens, ie the hinges and everything? Or just the metal hoops – want to replicate this as time easily as I can for the school garden
!
No, just the hoops came from Cavaretta. The 1/2″ pipe clamps came from Lowes. The hinges, handle and corner brackets came from O’Keefe’s in Rochester. O’Keefe’s in a sort of independently run dollar store. It’s not that it all costs a dollar, but it’s similar style stuff, in various price ranges. If you want to tell me how many you want to make. This is the link to the Permaculture meetup with step by step photos. You can use the black piping, they used, instead, but I had the hoops, so went that route. http://www.meetup.com/GreaterSeacoastPermaculture/events/14523017/
Oh, but Cavaretta Gardens is a couple miles further down Route 4 than the place that sells the barrels, so if you are getting the barrels, you can get the hoops at the same time. The guy that came to talk to use, might be willing to come to the school and make them with a group of kids. He was super helpful and did a great job of running the hands on class.