Saturday Farm Journal :: Green Tomato Relish

The batteries in the camera died right before I could show you the two gallons of relish I made Friday night. All the green tomatoes are from our garden. The peppers in the photo are from our garden, but the onion is from the store. I ended up purchasing onions and peppers from the store, but maybe the last batch of relish will have some from our garden. The story is the same with the garden, many weeds, few things to report. We are fairly certain we are not going to get the 5lbs of seed potatoes back in produce. We are hoping to break even. The good news is that the ducks are now taking care of the potato bugs for us, check out  this post for the all the waddling fun!

The tomatoes are doing awesome, regardless of their floppy, bushy state. Jason did manage to stake a few. He tossed some branches into the horses paddock, which is beside the garden, believing that the horse didn't like tomatoes. Wrong! The next day the horse helped himself to some plants and ruined some tomatoes! Gah! Luckily, there are tons of tomatoes so the horse can have a few.

Mom did manage to weed one row of potatoes in the last week. We have picked green beans twice, but haven't been able to put any up for winter because we're eating them. We have stored up four gallons of blueberries in the freezer. My sister in law picked about a gallon of blueberries yesterday and we have probably have eaten a gallon. That's six gallons of blueberries from three bushes! God is good! 

Last weeks list:

• weed: cabbage and tomatoes
• stake tomatoes
• pick tomatoes
• make relish
• pick blueberries

This weeks list:

• pick blueberries
• pick green beans
• weed something
• stake tomatoes

Saturday Farm Journal

On Thursday, with the help of the son of a farmer from church, the broilers were slaughtered, processed, and placed in the freezer. The whole chickens varied in estimated weight from 5-7lbs. We decided to go ahead and stop growing them at 8weeks because the largest broiler died one evening and another good sized one became lame. We ended up with eleven chickens in the freezer for a total of (averaged and estimated) 55lbs of chicken. Not too bad for our first time. Next year we will be doing more, and possibly getting a few turkeys too.

The ducks have been moved to their permanent home. All eleven of them. At first we kept the two batches apart with fences until they were accustomed to each other. Now they get along just fine with only a little bit of dominating pinches now and again. 

We have been eating a lot of blueberries. Every two days we spend two hours picking everything that is tinged red. Once inside they are all blue within a few days and then we freeze them in gallon sized bags. I have already made Upside-down Blueberry Cake and will be making it again tonight to take to a family gathering. I will be sure to take a few photographs and put the recipe up on our other blog after this week-end.

The garden is doing great. Mom has been spending a lot of time each evening weeding, when she isn't picking blueberries. This past week she weeded some tomatoes and potatoes and Dad hilled them. I weeded some tomatoes and peppers, and staked a few tomato plants. We ate green beans out of the garden on Wednesday, they were so yummy. Next week I will be making Green Tomato Relish, since we ate up the last jar a month ago.

Last weeks lists:

• weed: cabbage and tomatoes
• water if it doesn't rain
• continue to watch for bugs
• replant cucumbers
• move layers outside and Peking ducks to house

Next weeks list:

• weed: cabbage and tomatoes
• stake tomatoes
• pick tomatoes
• make relish
• pick blueberries

Saturday Journal

• Planted seeds: beets, carrots, summer squash, zucchini, beans, and sunflowers
• Planted onions
• Strung up peas
• Bought more chickens (fluffy white ones), this time broilers and one mystery chick
• Thanked God: for the rain to water the garden, the coolness to help the cabbage and Brussels sprouts take root, and the overcast sky so that the tomato plants didn't get scorched.

On Monday Jason came home and said to me (Delia) in a mischievous voice: "I have something for you!" To which I responded, "It better not be a puppy or I'll kill you." He took me to the porch and presented me with a box of fluffy, yellow, peeping chicks. "They are broilers! Meat birds."

That night we constructed a new home for the ducks, a dog kennel wrapped in wire and cardboard, and put the new little chicks where the ducks once lived.

For a few days everything was fine. Then the Reds got bigger. Bigger and flapping. Flapping, jumping, and perching on the water jars. Flapping and jumping to get over the gate to visit the new chicks. I said to my Mom, "One of these days we are going to go on the porch and a Red is going to be with the Broilers."

Sure enough later that day Mom went out on the porch and a Red was laying down with the Broilers.

I worried that the Reds would get hurt trying to get over the fence, so I removed it. Everyone is happy, healthy, and getting big and strong!

This week in the garden we hope to:

• Weed the peas
• Mulch the strawberries
• Plant pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers, potatoes, watermelon