2022 Garden Haul & Food Storage
recapping how our garden went this year and our plans for next
This year marked our 3rd on the homestead and our 2nd year of garden! I’m realizing more and more how important it is to know where your food is coming from and it doesn’t get much more transparent than just growing it yourself. It’s hard work but I’ve found a lot of joy in the process and so far each year has gotten much easier (it’s still frickin hard).
June 2022 - The garden has begun!
Before moving to upstate NY we lived in the concrete jungle of Brooklyn with our above ground garden. More and more I’ve realized just how much living there had affected me and my perspective. While energetic and inspiring I always felt not quite right like I wasn’t meant to stay.
It was never my plan to live in the city but I got a sick job that at the time I really loved but jobs aren’t the only reason to be somewhere. Standing amongst thousands of blurry bodies hustling around trying to make a living, find love, find themselves etc was overwhelming for me. So we left and started our next chapter upstate.
Our garden now stands in hopefully it’s forever home and boyyyyyy am I so frickin proud of the it this year. We’ve started to figure out what we really like to eat (kale, tomatoes, squash) and what gets wasted (eggplant, cucumbers, green peppers) along with how we can store food for the winter. And what seemed really daunting last year felt so much easier this year, which I was really thankful for. Currently we freeze, dehydrate and use the water canning method to store our food.
Dehydrating was probably one of my favorites. After a month of drought we finally had a weekend of rain and with moisture comes mushrooms. I was in luck because on our land was a ton of oyster mushrooms ready to be harvested. The ones we couldn’t eat right away were then dehydrated to use for soups and other recipes. Also a fun veggie to dehydrate is squash & zucchini! Scroll down to see what it looks like.
Next year we plan to start our seeds early esp the luffa, which you know I’ve been trying really hard to grow but our growing season is very short. In other news - we’ll be expanding the garden to include a chicken run that is full of fruiting trees, building out water collection and drainage systems, we’ll grow as many strawberries as possible (my favorite jam), finally making hot sauce… and much more. Can’t wait to start planning!
Let me know in the comments what you’re excited to grow or looking forward to in Spring
Last haul of the 2022 season
Dehydrated Summer Squash & Zucchini - great for soups and stews
Homemade Fire Cider for the days we need a boost in immunity or just a little extra flavor in our soups - Recipe
Some of our canned food - mostly tomato sauce and paste
Foraged Oyster Mushrooms - Our summer was so dry soI didn’t expect to see any mushrooms. These popped up at the very end of Summer after a few days of rain. The majority of these were cleaned, cut up and dehydrated for soups and stews.
The Best Zucchini Bread
Recently, as I start the pile of veggies, I’ve found myself getting to a point where I say “What am I going to do with all this?” Today that question was focused on our Zucchini haul.
Zucchini Bread served on Wild Bower Studio Sun Ray Serving Platter
When you start a garden there are so many moments where you wonder what will happen and if the garden will be a success. Will we get even one tomato or one squash? Well, we’ve officially surpassed our expectations. Every few weeks a new veggie starts to ripen and thus a new question starts to unfurl…
Recently, as I start the pile of veggies, I’ve found myself getting to a point where I say “What am I going to do with all this?” Today that question was focused on our Zucchini haul. The green gourds sometimes get lost behind the big leaves so we’ve had a few unexpected “monsters”. Some have grown larger than my forearm!
I tried to go through all of the recipes that I’ve made in the past to figure out my plan of attack. So today we made Zucchini bread, which should honestly be outlawed - it’s so dang good and more like cake than bread.
Zucchini Bread served on Wild Bower Studio textured ceramic dinnerware & Sun Ray platter.
I’m a simple potter and while with cooking I can confidently ad lib, baking on the other hand I tend to find sticking to the recipes (to start) helpful for success. After a quick search I discovered Mom’s Zucchini Bread recipe. Best part it has over 9K 5 stars reviews so you know it’ll be good.
We made this recipe twice, the first following exactly and the second adding some nutmeg, ginger and allspice to the mix. Both were delicious and for sure a treat you’ll want to share with your friends and family.
How to Preserve and Press Fall Leaves
Preserve your Fall memories by learning to press the vibrant foliage
I know that there are many ways to press leaves and flowers but as a little kid learned to used heavy books and wax paper. Using weight is the simplest method of saving all your goodies. Collect some heavy books, wax paper and pick out some leaves that are flat, thin and still malleable.
Clean off any dirt that might be on your leaf and then arrange them on your wax paper. Once arranged sandwich the leaves between sheets of wax paper and your book pages.
I like to do this with several books and then use them as decor that can be stacked upon with other heavy objects.
Please your books in a dry location. You’ll want to check on them in about a week to ensure that the leaves are indeed drying and not rotting. I tend to leave my leaves for a while and work on other projects but typically 2 - 3 weeks your leaves should be dried.
You can arrange your leaves in a scarp book or a float frame. Just make sure to keep them out of direct light, which will cause them to deteriorate faster.
It’s been a very long time since I pressed any flowers but with all this nature around us, I got pretty nostalgic. To commemorate our firstish year in our new home I decided to press whatever floral or greenery that was season. For the Fall we collected lots of color turning leaves from Birch, Maple, Oak and even Ferns.
