Alright family! Let’s get to the garden update that I know a lot of you were hoping to hear about. We left off with the garden to the point of basically where we planted everything. So this is a big change but at the same time not that big.

Let’s get to talking.

So the garden bad news.. We have a section of garden beds that just will not stop allowing the weeds and poison to stop invading the space. Don’t get us wrong, we knew the weeds were going to be a thing but it is still a bit ridiculous compared to the rest of the garden. It’s getting to the point that the actual plants aren’t being able to flourish how we want them too. So we have decided that this space will now just change to container planting. We are going to put down weed barrier and then put wood chips on top of it before we put down the containers. The goal is to be able to get a lot of our planting space back without having to deal with such issues. This is sadly the only route that we have come up with that may work out for us in the long run. We also do know that we may need to start cutting back the woods every other year and that will help with the issues too.

We also have a lot of long grass/weeds in the areas that we haven’t had the time to weed barrier and wood chip. Which, is to be expected. I basically know our biggest need right now is to get the barrier and get to work. If we did that, then we would cut out a decent chunk of our current random struggles. But we are the people that honestly do a little each year and just slowly chip away at the goals. This year we did so much and I am so proud of all we did. Now we just need to realize this is what we are going to be sitting with this season and that is ok!

Now the things that are doing great, herbs. I am so stinking excited and fortunate to say we are still going strong on the herb front. Its highly calendula and nasturtiums but last year we got back from the Homestead Festival and we were finished with all of our herbs. This year, we are going strong still with mint, yarrow, bloody doc, plantain, catnip, lemon balm, bee balm and more that I am currently forgetting. I hate to spoil it now but a lot of people will be receiving herbs and such from our garden for Christmas this year. I am so stinking ready for this one!!! We have been dehydrating the herbs and so far we have been grinding down the basil. The nasturtium is being put into a more powder like form and adding to salt. So we are making seasoned salt. Next we have been freeze drying the parsley so we can use for herbs too. I think we are going to need to order a big thing of salt to keep going with the amount we are getting. We haven’t needed to use too many nasturtiums to salt ratio, so we are over run with them. I know we can use nasturtiums in different ways, but I still have some from last year too. But with different herbs and different produce coming into season soon, I would like to be prepared with enough salt to continue making them! Ideally, have all the gifts ready in advance so then I can pull it nicely together with ease!

The only other thing thats going like crazy right now is the tomatoes. Now we are only in the green stage but the amount of green tomatoes showing, is amazing!!!  I asked Jeremy for the year of freezing and he sure is delivering. Now I am excited for it this year because and friend of ours shared a video and now we both have new plans on how to process tomatoes. I like this idea because it can be a two day process and on the days that I don’t feel so good, we can do this more hands off. Jeremy and I also want to do a lot of freeze drying tomatoes too so its easy to use as needed. But I do plan to add more canned items to the shelves too. I would like to restock a years worth of items but from there we can do into powders more. I like being able to have that as a back up but also for trips, this may be an easier route to use. For example the beach trip and The Homestead Festival are two trips this would benefit from having some more freeze dried items from. Now the trips that we go on with more people involved and we cook for, that may be more of the canned items instead. So a balance between the two ways of preserving is going to be a big benefit for us.

Other than that we have Elderberries about ready to start! There are a lot of flowers but we also have a lot of tiny berries starting. These I would like to freeze dry this round and see how that goes instead. But if the freeze dryer is going nonstop and we can’t fit it into the mix then I will gladly do the dehydrator. Either way we are going to preserve the berries!

We also have the peach tree producing but that will only yield a few peaches. The pear tree though, y’all, we cannot fumble on this tree. We absolutely need to get all the pears we can. There is so many on the tree right now its not even funny. So I need to start coming up with ways to use pears. Aside from eating, but how do I want to preserve them too? I know I would like to freeze dry some so we can do powder for drinks. I also saw about a pear butter. But other than that I don’t have any more ideas but I need to work on getting some! I think I will need to work on planning a big canning day for those too.

Besides all of that I forgot we had a lot of mustard greens going. The radishes didn’t fully take off but we had a lot of radish tops that we put into powders. We also had a decent chunk of kale and spinach.

Now I truly am out of thinking of whats been going on with the garden. So with that, I will update you again in a bit to see whats going on next. I will say we are fortunate enough to be doing a decent chunk better than some with how much rain we were getting. I have heard a lot of people took a bit of a hit with that but we were fortunate enough that where everything is located, we didn’t have to worry about much.

Ok I’ll chat with you all on the next blog!