2023 garden stats and notes

The part of gardening that I enjoy is the processing, not the growing, and since there are plenty of local farms that will happily sell me produce in bulk, this year I decided I could just purchase from them and save myself the trouble. Besides, I figured we’re already doing plenty by producing our own pork and beef, dairy, and eggs, so if I’d rather spend my time making cheese instead of pulling weeds, then why not. I don’t need to do everything, right? I’m aiming for community sufficiency here, not self sufficiency. 

CSA treasures

So we nixed the garden for this year, and it was a huge relief (and saved us much marital strife), so we’ll probably nix it for the next year, too.

mint tea, eggs, yogurt

eggs, eggs, eggs

strawberry freezer jam

CSA leftovers

buttah

I still canned and froze a few things, though, as you’ll see… 

Stats

• Mint Tea Concentrate: a bunch, made by my younger son
• Strawberries from Woods Edge, 18 pounds: 14½ quarts, frozen; 2-3 gallons whole berries, frozen
• Strawberries from our garden: 2 batches berry sauce, 12 pints freezer jam
• Sour Cherries: 12 1-cup bags frozen; 5 quarts sweetened juice; 7 quarts bounce, 3½ pints jam, 5 gallons mead
• Wild Wineberries: 2½ quarts
• Cauliflower and Broccoli from Season’s Bounty: 5 pints, frozen
• Peaches, Glohaven (2 bushels): I didn’t make notes! 20 quarts? 30? I have no idea!
• Red Raspberries: 21 quarts, frozen
• Corn from Clover Hill (processed with family): 40 pints for us
• Tomatoes: 8 quarts and 6 pints salsa, 6 quarts chopped tomatoes, 22 pints roasted pizza sauce
• Grapes: 8 pints jelly, 12 quarts juice, 5 gallons mead, 1 gallon wine
• Applesauce: 28 quarts
• Lard: 5 quarts and 7 pints
• Broth (pork, chicken, turkey): 25+ quarts
• 2 pigs: bacon, Canadian bacon, ground pork, hams, roasts, sausages (classic, breakfast, Italian)
• Cheeses: 40 hard cheeses, plus ricottas, yogurt and yogurt cheese, mozzarella, etc.

sour cherry bounce

family corn day

applesauce

Gruyère

meads and wines

broth

The Notes
*My younger son continued his summer CSA gig so we had fresh produce all summer. 

*Our strawberries have gotten increasingly smaller so after this year’s piddly harvest, my husband tilled up the patch.

*We got a lot of our apples from an orchard in Pennsylvania (close to my grandparents’ house), and we got about 16 gallons of cider from a local orchard here — to freeze for winter popcorn suppers and then an extra 5 gallons for a batch of cyser.

*Along with the grape, apple, and sour cherry meads, I also started 5-gallon batches of spiced cranberry mead and red raspberry and rhubarb mead. 

*Even though we were out of pickles, I didn’t make any. We found some decent dills at a discount grocery (99 cents a jar) and bought a flat of them. We’re missing our 7-day sweets something fierce, though, so they’re top of the list for next year’s canning projects.

*We didn’t do any green beans because I thought frozen Costco green beans would be tasty enough, but nope, no one here likes them. I guess we’re left with no recourse but to grow our own!

*We’re out of pesto, too. Next year… (This no growing anything plan doesn’t appear to be shaping up too well.)

*The sweet corn this year has been incredibly delicious. We’ve been eating a lot of corn.

*We’re still eating our beef from several years ago, and now we have the pork from Fern and Petunia. Along with the cuts I listed above, we have about 8 more boxes of fat that need to be rendered into lard. (The lard I listed above came from just one of those boxes.) We’ve currently got two more piggies fattening up; they should be ready to butcher spring of 2025.

lard

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.26.22), wedding weekend: the officiation, chocolate bourbon pie, a Christmas spectacle, 2018 book list, sex for all creation, 2015 book list, hot buttered rolls.