The Law of the Harvest

"That which ye sow, that shall ye also reap."

Three years ago, the Stahr family planted a garden. We included corn, peas, beans, and something else that I can't remember because it was three years ago. I'm lucky I remember today! Our corn blew over in the wind, the peas didn't really grow, and the beans were thin - at best. Not to mention the deer. They ate what we didn't pick as soon as it made a showing. We vowed we weren't going to plant another garden until we had a fence up. And so, we didn't.

This year, Andrew put up a fence made of fishing line. I will admit that I was extremely skeptical and kept hinting that we do something different. The fence was wonderful! We didn't have a single deer in our garden, and it flourished. Not because of the fence, I'm sure - although the fence certainly kept critters at bay!

In our garden, we planted corn. We planted pumpkins. We planted beans, peas, onions, potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, three different types of peppers, and the weeds came on their own. That was the upper garden. In the lower garden, we planted tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, and more peppers.

Fast forward to the end of summer... Our broccoli died. Our cauliflower died. Our zucchini is JUST NOW getting zucchini (just in time for the first frost! How fantastic!) The weeds did fabulously. The corn blew over - but not until we had already harvested most of it and canned a lot of it. And when I say a lot, I mean 40 quarts. The onions didn't do very well, but that's o.k. Our potatoes harvested out two 5-gallon buckets full of the largest potatoes I have ever seen. Our beans didn't get picked except for dinners a couple of times. We just ate the 12 carrots that we grew (we started with two rows, and they just didn't grow... Tonight, we picked 43 sugar pumpkins, and the children grew 3 carving pumpkins each - we had 4 giant jack-o-lantern pumpkins volunteer themselves by our burn pile to the side of the house. We picked more gallons of tomatoes than I can count. We've picked a peck of peppers to pickle - and there are still peppers left to pick. We pickled 3 gallons of dill pickles.

In the last three months (because we started in August...) we have canned the following:

41 pints of blackberry jam.

11 pints of gooseberry jam.

50 quarts of applesauce. (spiced and plain with a little sugar)

97 gallons of apple cider.

38 quarts of white grape juice.

23 quarts of peaches.

7 quarts peach pie filling.

9 pints triple berry jam.

5 quarts pickled tomatoes.

40 quarts tomato juice.

12 pints tomato basil sauce.

11 quarts spaghetti sauce.

20 pints pizza sauce.

5 pints, 6 quarts pickled peppers.

40 quarts frozen corn.

11 quarts southwestern salsa.

9 pints corn salsa.

11 pints sweet pickle relish.

15 pints, 8 half pints dill pickle relish.

And we pick up between 15 and 18 farm fresh eggs daily.

We have literally filled every. single. one. of our quart jars. And we still have pumpkin to do. And red grape juice. And I forgot to count the quart of dried tomatoes that I put into the freezer.

So... if there is a food emergency on the planet somewhere, and grocery stores are all sold out of things that are yummy to eat, you're all invited to dinner. We can eat some of the meat stored in our freezer and grind wheat to make bread. We'll have to use rocks, because we don't have a wheat grinder, but... at least we won't starve to death!

Planting Time!

the lower garden...

Andrew and LeGrand watering the upper garden

Savannah

Margaret

LeGrand planting his pumpkins

Savannah planting pumpkins

Margaret - trying not to get dirty while planting pumpkins...

It's taken us three weeks to plant our garden, but I am pleased to report that we're finally finished. This year we planted TWO gardens. An upper garden with corn, potatoes, peppers, carrots (if they come up...) beans, onions, pumpkins and peas. The lower garden has tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins and strawberries. Savannah helped Andrew put a fence in, the rest of the children helped to plant all the plants.

LeGrand was a good helper when it came to digging in the dirt... Savannah and Margaret did a fabulous job helping to get the actual plants in - the two of them planted onion and peas with Andrew and have been thrilled to see that their plants are coming up!

The three oldest children each planted their own hill of pumpkins yesterday; it's been wonderful hearing them pray that their plants will grow!!!

All in all, we're praying for a good harvest and just enough rain...