August preserving frenzy
Sometime
in early to mid August, the flow of food from garden to table becomes a
flood. Nowadays, my farm chores are often done in the kitchen, blanching
beans, cutting corn off the cob, and stewing up a pot of soup.
The garden still needs work, of course, but my priorities have shifted
to making sure we have enough bounty preserved to enjoy throughout the
winter months.
Poor Mark has to deal
with the consequences. It's not unusual for a preserving endeavor
to conclude with both sink basins and the counter stacked over a foot
high with dirty pots and pans, so I sometimes take pity on him and
recommend that he use some of our "work hours" to deal with the
mess. Cooking and dishes count as a farm chore at this time of
year!
Our chicken waterer gives the chickens a
refreshing drink after they pick apart the mountains of corn cobs and
tomato tops.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I am so jealous of your beautiful corn! Mine is short, unevenly filled out, and full of corn worms. The neighbors keep telling me to use chemical fertilizer, but I just don't want to go down that road, with all the free goat and humanure I have. I just love that corn though....