The Weekly Digs #178
Preserving
As I was running errands this week, I was down near our local farm stand and decided to stop by to see if the grapes were ready yet. They informed me that the grapes were a little late this year but would be ready soon.
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Instead, I picked up a bushel of #2 peaches and a half bushel of #1 peaches. The peach seconds are great because they are half price and I was planning on making peach BBQ sauce which is perfect for squishy peaches that have a few bad spots on them.
The Peach BBQ turned out yummy. I used the recipe from the book Freeze Fresh.
I also knocked out the final batch of salsa for the year. I feel so good about having that done. Now onto canning diced tomatoes.
As I mentioned last week, lots still to do before we are officially done putting up food for the year.
In the Garden
My focus has moved toward getting fall crops in the ground! I find myself scrambling to clear out old crops and weeds to get all our transplants in the ground. It’s always a little more work than I anticipate.
In order to get ready for a new area, the kids and I harvested some potatoes. I have found the potatoes keep much better in the soil, but I am also a bit desperate for space so we cleared a 40 foot area and now I just need to prep it for planting.
We got two 5 gallon buckets worth so far, which is about 70lbs if I’m going off of last years weight per bucket. We also randomly harvested potatoes all summer so yield wise we got more than that.
For getting mowed down by the blister beetles, the harvest is turning out better than expected. We still have about 125 feet of row left to harvest. I will wait until the end of this month to do that.
Right now we are harvesting potatoes, tomatoes, various herbs, summer squash, arugula, sweet peppers and jalapenos.
I transplanted lettuce, broccoli, and beets this week.
New Chicks!
There is always something special about new life on the farm. This week we got some new chicks. This time, we didn’t hatch them ourselves, I bought them from a somewhat local hatchery.
As I mentioned last week, we were in need of a few more egg laying chickens. They all arrived healthy and happy. But one had pasty butt upon arrival (I don’t know if that’s the official term but I’m using it anyway, haha!). Kian wiped it off but it just got clogged up again and by the next day I found the chick didn’t make it.
It was sad but the rest seem to be faring very well!
