Some Motivation for You to Grow Your Own Food

This is the time of year when many of us are thinking about or (for those warmer climates!) actively working on our gardens.

I personally also love being able to raise our own eggs and meat.  I want to know how my animals (meat) are being treated.  I want to know what is going into my food.  And more.  Especially when it comes to feeding my boys. 

I found this article via Dr. Mercola. You MAY want to click on it, and maybe even do a bit of research on your own... 

The article is 16 Foods with Scary Surprises.  It gives 16 foods that we commonly buy from major companies, and the FDA requirements as far as ACCEPTABLE levels of rodent hairs, mammal excrement, larvae, fly eggs and more....  Yes, you heard it right, there are ACCEPTABLE levels....

I don't know about you, but this article motivates me even more to grow/ raise my own food!  What about you?  Check out the article, then come back and let me know what you think!

Clinging to the Past

Sometimes clinging to the past isn't always a bad thing.

Sometimes all of this awesome technology can get to be too much, and get to change things that SHOULDN'T be changed. Including seeds. When you engineer a seed, when you take this-n-that, and you throw out this other thing... it may LOOK like an ear of corn, but now it's inner genetics are unrecognizable as being such. (More good info HERE).

Man of us are drawing to a close our summer growing season, and look forward to what we are going to do next year. Many of you are also considering a garden for the first time next year! Whatever we are looking forward to, it is always a good thing to make sure we keep it SIMPLE.

Heirloom seeds. They are the good stuff! They are what has been around for a long time. The weak ones die off, the strong and healthy ones survive, and continue to grow. I had some pie pumpkins that I bought at a local farm. I kept the seeds last year, and planted them this year. These were obviously a GMO seed, because I got a mutant gourd out of the bunch of pumpkins. I DIDN'T PLANT GOURDS! It is on the SAME plant as the pumpkins! Genetically modified plants can mutate a do different things from year to year. SO if you want to save seeds from year to year, it is a good idea to get a trustworthy seed to start with, such as heirloom!

Inexpensive equipment. The most expensive peice of equipment I own is a rototiller. This tiller can break sod, which has been a HUGE blessing this year. We got some quotes on people coming out and tractor tilling our garden and sod for us, and it would have cost us a couple hundred dollars! The rest of our equipment is all hand tools! Spade, rake, hoe, shovel... Garden hose, cheap sprinkler. We bought an expensive one a few years back and it lasted about a year and a half with our hard water, so now we bye cheap, and it lasts the same amount of time, if not longer!

Prep your ground NOW. If you are planning on breaking new ground next Spring for a garden, start NOW! Hubby and I will be breaking new garden ground in the next few weeeks, and I am going to dump manure all over it! It is natural. It is a great way to naturally give what your soil needs. It also encourages eart worms and other beneficial insects. You can till it in now, or wait until Spring. Either way, it's good stuff! If you don't have manure on your property, check with neighbors who have animals. If they have animals, they most likely have manure that they would LOVE to get rid of!

Start looking at seeds companies, and getting their catalogs. This is probably the most fun! Get a variety of companies. Check out the prices and quantities. Make the right decision for you. Be ready and make your seed orders this Winter! I made mine in January, and I had no problems getting the seeds that I wanted AND I had the seeds in plenty of time!

Growing is IMPORTANT! Whatever you do, growing SOMEthing is IMPORTANT! If you just grow a tomato plant in your apartment window, or a few plants on a patio, THAT is something! Whatever amount is WORKABLE for you, is good. Don't try to push yourself because someone else has more of a garden. It's not a show.

Whatever you do, again, keep it SIMPLE. Gardening can be a JOY, but it can also be a burden.

I like to think back to what MY grandmother would have done on her farm as a child... She grew up during the Depression, and I always like to try to think about what they did. They didn't have big expensive equipment, they didn't have mutating plants. I also don't want you to think we have to again, seem "poor". BUT, simple can be a good thing. Getting to many things going can be pouring money into too many different things, things that don't necessarily need to BE!

Most of all, HAVE FUN! Gardening is FUN! Pulling those sun-ripened tomatoes out and serving them, still warmed by the sun, on your table is a blessing.

It may seem a ways off, but start planning now! You will be glad you did!

A Day...

I love harvest season, I love seeing the fallen leaves on the ground, I love hearing them crunch under my feet, I love seeing shelves full of canned (or frozen) harvest, awaiting the long COLD Winter...

This time of year (in Indiana) when it can be anywhere from a cooler 72 to a hot 90 during the day, and a VERY cool 49 to 60... It feels like FALL. Even though MOST of the leaves haven't changed yet. Our walnut trees are the only ones who leaves are starting to jump ship.

What have I been doing? Well, you saw my pictures from last weekend, and the harvest. I have been trying to get the tomatoes off the vines before they are annihilated by bugs. Not really sure about the tomatoes that I grew this year, they had vine rot, bugs and I know they are heirloom, and I can DEAL with those things, BUT the taste of them were a little different as well... SO not really sure I will try to grow them again...

So despite the little different taste, I am still processing some tomatoes. Hopefully IN things the tomato sauce and juice won't be so different. I made homemade pizza sauce last weekend and I could taste the sauce but it tasted good! So- fingers crossed! :)


As Fall draws closer, I also know the fate of "Turkey"... She has been a sweet gal, but I have known since I bought her and 7 others (who didn't make it due to meeting a stray cat...) that they were going to be food. It's just difficult, because with ONE turkey, she has become almost a pet. She follows me around, she talks to me, she sees me (or hears me) from afar and she runs to me...


She KNOWS I like her better than the hoard of chickens we have... Darn it. But this is the life we have chosen, and this is and always was her destiny...

I like to walk around the garden and check out what is growing, and just soak in all of the beautiful things God has done there. Check out this little guy I found in there:



Just look at those EYES:


It's amazing to sit and be able to look at a creature like this. God made all of those little parts, and when I brought the camera closer to it, it actually turned it's head to look at me. It studied ME... Simply amazing.

So, peanut butter cookies are made for 3 little boys as they come home from school... and I need to finish with some tomatoes and then make dinner.... I hope you all have had a WONDERFUL day!

Chaos and Reward

Oh! How much chaos there is during harvest season! But in the chaos of reaping the harvest and KEEPING the harvest, comes great rewards! FIGURATIVELY AND LITERALLY!

Messy Kitchen/ AKA Canning Time!

This last weekend, we (yes! Hubby is a HUGE help!) put up 5 pints of tomatoes sauce (so far) and 33 pints of grape jelly. We need more jelly.... Who am I kidding. I think we now have enough jelly to feed a medium sized army... And we will PROBABLY put up MORE jelly. WHY? Well, our grapes have seeds... bummer. I MAY try to make straight up grape JUICE, but I need to get a strainer first. The grapes DO smell lovely as they are cooking on the stove...

This guy was bored with all of the canning going on...

Here is our little grape sneak!

Speaking of lovely smells, I also enjoy the smell of tomato sauce cooking! We didn't get much put up this weekend, BUT there is more to come! More tomatoes on the vine, just waitin'... It rained Saturday, so we will have more poppin' out.

There is such a rewarding feeling that goes along with all of the mess in my kitchen and the jars, upon jars of various fruits and veggies... And even a rewarding feeling trying to figure out WHERE I will be putting all of those jars... WHAT A PROBLEM!

Speaking of problems... I have NEARLY run OUT of jars! I am TOTALLY out of the pint jars, and ALMOST out of the quart ones. I have more tomatoes to put up, more grapes (in one form or another), that MAY be all for the jars though.

We harvested a BUNCH of potatoes this weekend also. Those are going in the basement, to keep cool for the Winter. We also are ABOUT ready to harvest our Winter Squash, and Spaghetti Squash. More to keep for the Winter!

These are red and yellow potatoes. We harvested about 125-150 lbs! What a blessing!


Check out these HUGE red potatoes!



I also harvested, believe it or not, for the first time, seeds from my lettuce! I let my first row of lettuce go to seed, and now I have twice the seeds than I bought this Spring. With MANY more to come! I can't wait to try to plant these in the Winter. I bought a rectangle shaped pot to stick in my South facing window, to see if I can plant some lettuce in the Winter!

Also my Sunflowers came out finally! They are ABSOLUTELY HUGE. Here is a pic of them, to the left of them is corn that is about 6 foot tall:


We also have small pumpkins that are also ALMOST ready to rock-n-roll... :)



Our apples aren't perfect, but they ARE organic! Looking forward to some apple sauce and maybe some apple butter...


That was OUR busy harvest weekend SO FAR! We praise God for the blessings that we have harvested so far, and are so happy to be able to save money in the future on groceries for our growing family.

What are YOU harvesting right now?

Keeping the Harvest

There's nothing like the feeling you get when you open a cupboard full of your hard work/ harvested fruits and veggies, or when you grab something out of the freezer, and there is all of the wonderfully healthy harvest that you worked so hard to put in there for your family.

I have canned and frozen things in the past, but this is the first year I have worked THIS HARD at it.

This summer, as the produce is rolling in, we have been able to enjoy much of it, therefore saving our family money on our grocery bill! (But this is a topic for another day!) It's so awesome to need something to eat for supper, and to be able to go out to the garden, pick it, then cook it up (or eat it raw!) and serve it to your family. I really am SO thankful that I am healthy enough to be able to do these things. I am thankful that even those things that DON'T turn out like I expected (corn!), that I am still able to learn from it. I am PRAISING God for these things!

About a week ago, we (hubby) butchered 10 chickens. I was one bag short of being able to throw all of them into the freezer, so I threw that one in the pot instead. It was AWESOME. I threw in some carrots and potatoes, and we had a TRULY home cooked meal. And NEVER did you eat anything so delicious!

I have been trying to keep track of everything we pull from the garden (which with 5 other sets of hands around here, I can't always keep track!). And everything that we harvest from our farm. I have been keeping track of these things in my notebook. (Check that out HERE.) Not just because I am bored and have nothing better to do with my time, but so I can see from year to year what we did, and to challenge myself to improve!

I am keeping track also on this blog! If you would like to see what we are doing here, I am an open book! Look to the left of the screen.

I have one that is for food harvested from the garden, and one for canning and freezing. You can see how we are doing to date this year.

Like I have said before, I NEED a bigger garden, but I hope (know!) this will help! I am proud of any amount that we are able to produce as a family. I am proud to be a part of the health and learning of my boys!

How has your harvesting/ keeping been coming along? What have you been canning/ freezing? If you have blogged about it, leave a link in the comments! I would LOVE to hear about it!

Putting Up Corn!

OK- so our garden has recently been ravaged by raccoons, and the brunt of the damage has fallen on my corn. We even have a live trap set, but so far no coons. We even had our dog tied up within feet of the garden, they still had their way!

But! My mother-in-law called yesterday to ask if we needed any corn. There is an auction place not too far away that sells produce of all sorts. Mostly from the Amish in the area. And they were selling corn! YAY!

So I got 3 bushels (15 doz), and put up all of the corn (and left out about a 1 1/2 doz to eat!) last night!

Deklyn decided to line up all of the corn. This is most of it. When he filled the table, he had to start on the counter....


Here is my homestead helper! He had the muscle job!


Here was a little sneak taking off all of the kernels that were left, off the cobs...



Caught ya!


We ended up putting up 29 quarts (baggies) in the freezer. We hope to get at least that amount again, and put up even more! Hope we have the freezer space!

What have you been freezing or canning?