Hi! Welcome to my blog! My name is Jane (PlainJane) and I am the blessed and happy wife to Jeff and doubly blessed mama of two perfectly wonderful daughters. Please join me as I share our Lifestyle of Learning through Christian homeschooling and homesteading on our little hobby farm with our prairie girls.
Amber (Bookworm) is our dd15/10th grader.
Our perfectionist and over-achiever. She loves reading, playing violin, all things vintage, riding her Paint horse, and being a farm girl.
Anna (Ladybug)
is our dd12/7th grader.
Our "girls just want to have fun" girl. She loves to play and has a great sense of humor, but also enjoys cooking, music, and riding her QH pony.
In light of the frost advisory for tonight, I am so thankful that we got our harvest in when we did. This year's garden wasn't too bad -- all things considering...
We had a very late spring & summer and we didn't get planted as soon as we should have. And then, it remained cool with drought conditions most all year which took it's toll on most gardens in our area. Personally, we/I could have done more -- we have rain barrels, and I could have been more aggressive in the weeding, but it seemed like such a lost cause that I just let it go this year.
It seemed like nobody's carrots came up, including ours. Our onions were small and few. Our green beans came very late and were mostly too dry. Our corn we had enough for two meals. Apples run every-other year if you don't prune - so this was our off year and we just got two or three dozen. But..., although late, our tomatoes made a nice comeback and I probably had one of my best canning seasons for them, and then there were the potatoes...take a look at these puppies...
The potato on your left is a typical medium potato from a grocery store (what I still had in the pantry). The potatoes on the right are our potatoes this year. I weighted them, the store-bought potato is a 1/2 a pound; our potatoes are 1 1/2 pounds each! And almost all our potatoes this year were BIG - our small ones were more like the potato on the left. Although it was way too dry, Jeff did make some very nice trenches for planting the potatoes and then was diligent at covering them mid-season and I think that really made all the difference in the world. We usually get a good potato crop, but this was our best ever. We thank God for His bountiful blessings!!!
I still need to do something with the herbs, but may just cover them tonight from the frost and deal with them later.
We are thankful for what we received from the Lord and every year we say, "Next year" -- we will try harder and do better.
We have grown potatoes (not here, of course), but we really know nothing about it except you put the seed potato in the ground, pick off the beetles all summer, and in the fall, dig them up. And they are very good!
One year someone gave us some of the bounty of their potato crop. Their potatoes looked like yours -- they were HUGE! And they tasted like black pepper!!! We had to throw out about 400 lbs of what would have been good, filling food, if we could stand the heat. But we couldn't. What happened to them, do you know? Did they not get enough water? You'll have to tell me if yours are peppery. ??
What big taters! Those sure would come in handy. We LOVE taters! I look forward to having my own garden one day but until then I'll rejoice with those who do have them. ;o) What a blessing, too, that you had some good tomatoes come in that you could can!
Hope your week is going well, friend.
~ Christina
http:///hskubes.blogspot.com
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