Tallying the 2013 Harvest

Before the sand in the hourglass of the year 2013 runs out completely, I want to continue a tradition I started last year and officially record the harvest that God graciously gave us this year.  Before I get to the numbers though, here are some thoughts I jotted down throughout the course of the gardening/harvesting/preserving season.

The first thing that should be said is how grateful I am for all the help from Jeff and from my boys and from my parents.  Truly, truly, I could not do it without them; and as a matter of fact, Jeff does the VAST majority of the garden work (including enlarging it this past year).  In general, he grows it, and I preserve it (with help from him at times, too).  I like our system.  :)

~ while preparing green beans for canning, David created this piece of "art" with the ends  :)

Besides Jeff, I would say that Tobin was the most faithful garden helper this year.

He really took a special interest in it, and very faithfully watered his little portion of the garden--even when we'd had a big rainstorm the day before, and the ground really didn't need a drop more.  ;-)  Tobin's efforts were rewarded with some beautiful onions and zucchini.  Sadly, after giving us a few zucchini, all of our plants were mysteriously stricken and died rather quickly, so we didn't get nearly as much of a harvest from them as we expected.  But Tobin was happy that he at least got some.  :)  (And Josiah and David were happy that the plants died so they wouldn't have to eat as much zucchini!!)  ;-)

We were blessed with lots of rain this year (see the TALL corn in our neighboring field, for example!); and as a result, we didn't have to water the garden much at all.  The little bit of additional water we did give to the garden came from Jeff's rain barrels which he purchased VERY cheaply after finding them on Craiglist.  He rigged up a way to arrange them under various rain spouts from our house, our garden shed, and our wood shed, and then to let gravity do the work of getting the water onto the garden.  A penny saved is a penny earned, and Jeff "earned" us quite a few pennies that way.  :)

One thing that I enjoyed this year more than most years were our cucumbers.  I'm not sure if it was because of all the rain, but they had the BEST flavor.  Our plants produced an abundance of cucumbers, and I felt like the richest woman in the world to walk out to our garden whenever I wanted, pick a cucumber, and enjoy the fresh, healthy tastiness.  :)

Another winner in the garden this year was watermelons.  They were plentiful, huge, and delicious.  We weighed a few of the biggest ones; and although I can't remember the exact weights, the number 40 pounds comes to mind.  Writing about this in the cold, dark winter makes me long for the sweet juiciness of those watermelons!  :)

Every year, Jeff decides to do things a little differently; and this year some of the new things were planting sweet potatoes (they did well), asparagus (hmmm, I'm not sure how well these plants did; hopefully they'll come back in the spring), and strawberries (looking forward to a good harvest from these plants next year, too).  In addition we (Josiah, David, and I) also went to a nearby orchard and picked and canned sweet cherries, and we had fun planting cherry and plum trees.  On top of that, Jeff decided to make pickles with our great cucumber harvest, and they turned out really yummy.

From time to time this year, I once again experienced the discouragement that can accompany the process of canning food.  For example, you take a pile of green beans and work very hard to get them ready for the canner, and then what do you have?  Only 7 quarts of beans to show for it (and you think, "I could have gone to the store and bought 7 quarts of beans in a lot less time than THIS took!").  :)  But then you do it again, and you have 14.  Another turn in the canner, and you've got 21, and so forth.  Next thing you know, the cellar shelves are full, and it all happens 7 quarts at a time.  I'm sure there's a spiritual lesson in there somewhere  :)

Preserving food is messy.  Want proof?  :)

Our tomatoes were so full of moisture that when I canned tomato juice, this is how it turned out.

The jar on the right is what it looked like before being canned; it looks nice, right?  But after canning, it looks quite different.  Even though it's not very attractive, it still tastes good in recipes.  :)

OK, the numbers.  Keep in mind that we ate LOTS of food fresh, and we gave some away to others.  But here is what we preserved (at least, this is what I remembered to write down)...

Frozen:
Cilantro - 32 snack bags - a cup each maybe?
Strawberry freezer jam - 7.5 pints
Peas - 25 pints
Green onions - 11 snack bags
Sour cherries - 24 pints
Blueberries - 29 pints
Diced onions - 25 cups
Creamed corn - 87 (overly full) pints
Peaches - 7 quarts, 2 pints
Frozen tomato "juice" - 2 quarts, 7 pints

~ Tobin helping with green beans...the bandage on his wrist was just for fun, no real injuries had occurred :)

Canned:
Sweet cherries - 7 quarts
Pickles - 34 quarts, 11 pints
Dill beans - 17 quarts
Hot peppers - 4 half-gallons, 3 quarts, 4 pints
Salsa - 4 half-gallons, 30 quarts, 2 pints
Green beans - 34 quarts
Diced tomatoes - 31 quarts
Applesauce - 65 quarts
Peaches - 68 quarts
Tomato juice - 7 quarts
Spaghetti sauce - 6 quarts, 3 pints
Grape juice - 6 quarts
Venison - 12 quarts

Other:
Potatoes - I didn't measure how many pounds or bushels we got, but we got A LOT.  The neat thing about these is that, for seed, we had used old, shriveled potatoes that were left from the previous year's harvest, and they did just fine.  We didn't have to spend a penny on these, and we harvested enough to last us all year.  That thrills me.  :)
Sweet potatoes - Again, I didn't keep a record of how much we got; but for the first year, I think these were a success!

We give heartfelt thanks to the Lord of the harvest for His provision for us!  :)