Cosmo spring garden 2021

[Cosmo spring garden]

I have done more canning this week. We had just enough ripe tomatoes to make one batch of Annie's salsa and it is so good!

I have so much rhubarb growing and running out of freezer space. I found a victorian rhubarb barbecue sauce recipe in my ball canning book and I made a batch of that. We had that with a nut loaf today and it was amazing ! I will have to make more.

Canned more corn today and also will can some chili beans. We eat a lot of beans and as fast as my instant pot cooks dry beans I just need some canned for a quick meal.

The tomato plants are loaded. We are seeing early blight on lot of the plants. We spent some time pruning the diseased leaves yesterday and tying up the tomatoes. DH is going to spray copper fungicide and I hope the plants survive long enough to produce lots of fruit.

I have my fall seedlings started and they are all doing great. I will pot them up so they can get bigger before going to the garden. The durn cabbage moth actually found the cabbage seedlings and laid eggs on it. I'll spray BT to kill the Caterpillar.


Oh and I made this rhubarb crisp bars and oh my they are good! I plan to make more so I can freeze them.

 

[digitS']

Hey, Cosmo spring garden!

I experimented with several recipes for rhubarb barbecue sauce and shared my experience (and confusion) on TEG. Below is a link to the tastiest one for me.

One thing about this household, we don't eat much steak and such. Most meat goes in stir-fries and similar. Therefore, I didn't continue to make the BBQ sauce and the rhubarb has mostly gone to pie (of course ). It really wasn't much of a bother but a pint was like a 2 or 3 year supply! My experiments were back about 10 years ago but I put a kinda casual recipe on a post a little more recently. Good Stuff: TEG Link !

Steve

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Hey, Cosmo spring garden!

I experimented with several recipes for rhubarb barbecue sauce and shared my experience (and confusion) on TEG. Below is a link to the tastiest one for me.

One thing about this household, we don't eat much steak and such. Most meat goes in stir-fries and similar. Therefore, I didn't continue to make the BBQ sauce and the rhubarb has mostly gone to pie (of course ). It really wasn't much of a bother but a pint was like a 2 or 3 year supply! My experiments were back about 10 years ago but I put a kinda casual recipe on a post a little more recently. Good Stuff: TEG Link !

Steve

Thanks for sharing the link Steve!

I will read it and maybe find new recipes to try since I have loads of rhubarb lol.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

I have been so busy this past two weeks it's crazy. Sweet corn is finally done and now we are getting tomatoes by the boxes full! I have canned 28 jars of salsa and 14 jars of tomato sauce. I also dehydrated tomatoes for powder and cherry tomatoes to use as sun dried tomatoes.

We also harvested the last of the beans and they will dry until we have time to shell them.
Cucumbers are done unless my second planting produces much. Made 5 pint jars of bread and butter pickles today. That makes 9 jars and 4 jars of relish.
I have canned 41 quart size jars of sweet corn, 48 jars of green beans, 30 plus jars of jam, 4 jars of barbeque sauce. Also made garlic powder and salt. Fermented pickles and garlic are in the fridge. I am tired just typing that lol.

I am making ketchup and man it's a long process if you have super watery tomatoes lol. But it should taste amazing. I hope with all the work it required.

Also harvested one plant of sweet potatoes and got some nice size tubers!

I have fall seedlings ready to be planted but I'm waiting for some rainy days to do that so they dont scorch to death.

With the heat and homeschooling I have limited time for garden maintenance so the weeds are taking over. Oh well.

And our sprinkler died so I have been hand watering plants until we get a new one.

Here are few pics. I dont even have time to take pics lol.

 

[baymule]

Congratulations on all the canning and good food!

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Fall garden clean up is happening now! And there is always so much to do!
We are going to use our chickens to help with that. We move the hoop house over the garden beds and leave it there for 2 weeks and move it again. The chickens are doing a fantastic job of cleaning it up! After they do their part I sow cover crop which will grow all winter.

Our strawberry patch got out of control like it does every year. I want to grow even more plants for next year so I can sell some berries and dehydrate some. So I tilled up four 50' rows and have transplanted two of those rows with runners. I harvested more runners today and will transplant those tomorrow.
My fall garden is doing well except for aphid infestation. I had to pull out all my collards and kale from one raised bed because it was so gross covered in aphids. I sowed lettuce seeds in that bed.

I didnt know that bean beetles will eat crimson clover leaves.

I have also been busy canning and dehydrating apples. First year I have processed this many apples and I'm tired lol.

I planted fall onions. Has anyone done that? What we're your results?

Hubby is also helping me prep some beds for garlic planting.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

It’s nice to know I’m not the only person who’s strawberry patch went nuts this year. I planted about 40 last December with the rows 4 feet apart and the plants spaced 1.5 in the rows and they’ve covered every square inch of ground plus a 3 foot perimeter. Started trying to pull the weeds out this morning.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Harvested sweet potatoes today.

We don't have a way to weigh them but we think it's 200lbs or so.

I have no idea what variety they are. I bought two seed potatoes from lowes and also a saved variety from last year.

My strawberry rows are nicely covered with buckwheat plants.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Earlier this year I posted a picture of one almost empty shelving unit on a facebook group and made a goal to fill all those shelves with home grown food.. Well here we are in October and we had to add two more shelving units to hold all the food we preserved. Not everything is from our garden but at least 80% is
I am happy and tired. I am looking forward to a long winter rest!

We have more food placed in random corners of the house

This was our first year growing and preserving this much food. We made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot. God has blessed us and we are truly grateful!

 

[baymule]

That is fabulous! How awesome that y’all were so successful.