plot10homestead

Happy Valentine's Day! ❤️

Yesterday was spent raking and breaking down leaves before planting garlic. These beds are filled with Music, German Extra Hardy, and Elephant garlic, tucked under a layer of freshly chopped leaves until next summer 🧄 I chose hardneck garlic varieties that will produce scapes for an additional harvest. Elephant garlic is a new variety for me, and I'm excited to see how it grows and experience the flavor.

What do you do when you need to make room in the freezer? You find the sweet peppers left from last year's garden (that you wish you'd diced quite a bit smaller) and load the freeze dryer trays. I made room for homemade apple cider butter and a batch of apple pie filling that I'll be making in the next few days 🍅 The freeze dried sweet peppers can be broken down smaller and used in recipes or ground into a powder and added to homemade seasoning blends.

Day 31 of the

The challenge is complete, and I made it to the end! The last day of August was spent processing the remnants of tomato canning. The tomato skins filled the trays of our freeze dryer, and they're in the final hours of processing to become a flavorful tomato powder. Tomato powder can be used dry as a seasoning or reconstituted to make a rich, delicious tomato paste.
Next, seven quarts of tomato juice were simmered and reduced to 3 quarts of concentrated tomato broth. The broth will be frozen and freeze dried, to be used as seasoning or reconstituted into a flavorful broth during the winter months.

This challenge has pushed me in ways I never expected. It forced me to think about what I could be doing to move toward our food preservation goals on any given day and inspired me to find value in every effort, no matter how small.

With a month of food preservation behind me and two months of harvest ahead, I've decided to extend the challenge with a slight modification. For the month of September, I'm challenging myself to preserve something at least 4 times a week, no matter how small 🌱 This will continue to build our pantry while giving me time to focus on the fall garden, rebuilding raised beds, and moving the arched trellis. I'm excited to see what September has in store...fall is my favorite time of year! 🍁🍂