Winter stores update
Sweet Meat Winter Squash
I always feel like I can relax a little when we get to this point in the year, and we still have plentiful food in storage, and the new crop of garlic is looking robust.
Music Garlic
Our storage onions and garlic are holding out well, hanging in onion bags in the fruit room, which is a room in our basement, not heated, but dry. The new Walla Walla’s are planted to fill in the gap for summer eating and canning. Alliums are something we eat everyday – growing enough to keep us in onions is a challenge.
Melissa F1 savoy
Plentiful cabbage this winter has been a great addition to many dishes, not needing any processing, just harvesting as needed.
Viking Purple potatoes
We love potatoes, except HD can’t eat them now, but having enough to get through the winter is a relief. Going into winter with close to 600#, and one less potato eater, meant people got potatoes for Christmas. This potato has a medium moist texture that we like, and it stores until June in good condition. Our best storage place for holding potatoes in dormancy has been our straw bale “root cellar” in our barn. No light, high humidity and protection from freezing. Perfect.
broccoli, cauliflower, and romanesco
We did freeze quite a bit of broccoli and cauliflower, but personally the more food we have that we can harvest “fresh” like the root crops, hardy greens and cabbage the less I am caring for the taste of frozen or canned vegetables. My exception to that is canned green beans. (I know, but it is my comfort food!) Frozen corn is still languishing in the freezer, but we have been cautiously eating frozen chanterelles, and the various pestos that we made.
golden schmaltz from a pastured chicken
Our pastured chickens are going to last until we process our chickens in late June. Technically, I am counting my chickens before they hatch, since they won’t arrive for some time, and then they do have to grow.
I think I will stick with my 1 bird per week that I allotted last year. One chicken a week gives me 5 lunches, at least two meals, not including soup, and enough broth for cooking for the week, plus extras for the dogs.
what the kitchen table usually looks like...
Doesn’t every farmhouse kitchen look like this?
Food Renegade
Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op
Our kitchen table usually looks like that – it’s why I hate unannounced visitors…
I’m finding that this winter we didn’t eat all the fruits and veggies that I froze. I think the chickens are going to get a feast in the near future as it won’t keep much longer. This year I’m not going to put up all of the extra, I think we’ll gift it to friends instead.
I still want to try your straw bale technique for potatoes. Do you have a problem with field mice with them at all? Mice found ours in the tack room, though the potatoes are still keeping well (now moved to a secure spot).
Me too! That table seems to be the dumping ground for all the empty canning jars that need to go back to storage, plus …
I think our chickens will get some of those veggies too. I did discover that our older freezers that are made out of metal do not impart the freezer smell that permeates the plastic lined ones. So I try to put berries and fruits in those, and they do keep more than a year. The veggies I froze in canning jars do not have a bad taste, but I ran out of jars
I won’t freeze or grow as much broccoli this year – with all the kale and cabbage we had enough brassica family!
What we call field mice are voles, and they don’t come out of the fields. More likely it was a house mouse that chewed your potatoes. We haven’t had a problem yet (knock on wood) but we keep barn cats, and don’t really have much grain around the barn that the potatoes are stored in. But if your potatoes are anywhere near your chickens, you will most likely get rodents without cats, or other measures. The nature of the open feeders really brings them in, and barns have lots of good hiding places. Rodents and humans and agriculture, a symbiotic relationship, unfortunately!
My kitchen table is covered in computer crap at the moment, but it’s usually covered in mail, various hardware, and dog treats. We rarely ever actually eat at the table. Is that really what it’s for?
I just recently found your blog and love it! It amazes me how much food you put away each year! I’ve been canning and freezing on a much smaller scale (there’s just two of us) for years, but have not put up the variety of things that you have. Now that we have a farm and are becoming more self-reliant on the food we grow and raise, I have to start thinking about how to store it all through the winter. Which brings me to my question: We have a huge old metal-lined chest freezer which I don’t trust to keep running for very long. I was thinking about moving the freezer to our concrete cellar and just using it as rodent-proof storage for things like apples, pears, potatoes, etc. Do you see any problems with that? Would I need to leave the top open a bit to control condensation? Should I use straw or newspaper in between layers of food? I was going to use milk crates to keep things organized and separate.
wvfarmgirl, thank you! I am not sure if the freezer would work too well or not. If your basement is heated or over even 50 degrees it would be too warm for much long term storage, except onions, garlic etc. And the lid would need to be open and that would defeat the rodent-proofing aspect. Maybe use it to store dry pantry goods such grains, etc.
Vegetables and fruits should not be stored in the same room, since most fruits give off ethylene gas which hastens ripening and spoilage. We don’t have a “root cellar” per se, I keep fruit outside on our porch, potatoes in the barn, onions and garlic in the basement, and squash upstairs, and root crops are left in the garden. Basically, we have food everywhere, because each needs a different storage method. But, it only gets down to 10F here in the winter, maybe 5 degrees, but not for very long, so a lot depends on your winter temps. I guess I didn’t answer your freezer ? very well, did I?
Your pictures look a lot like my own storage! I too feel a bit more relieved these days, knowing that the stores are sound, and the fresh food is on its way. I’m surprised at how well the potatoes have lasted over the winter for me, but yours are so organized
– how many people do you have eating them so as to plan for 600lbs? (hoping to get some hints by doing the division for my own storage for just 1 person). I froze a lot of veg, but the cool storage ones do taste better. How are the canned/jarred veg? The taste I could never get used to, but maybe it is different when jarring ones own?
mangochild, it does feel good to have made it to spring with extra or at least enough doesn’t it?
As for the potatoes I don’t plan on how much we eat, but rather how much space I have to plant. Yield varies, but we easily had twice as much as we needed. I have heard 125# per person a year bandied about, but it depends on your eating and cooking habits. Potatoes are a calorie intensive food for biointensive gardening, so are a true survival food to grow.
The thing about canning is the expectation of taste – meaning each vegetable has it’s own unique taste and texture that either comes out good when canned or bad. Don’t expect anything to taste like a fresh vegetable from the garden, it won’t – but canning is an economical way to use the surplus (planned or windfall) from your garden or farmers market with a minimum of energy required. I love canned green beans, but would never touch canned chard or broccoli. I do think home canned foods taste better than what is available in the store.
O, the garlic looks pretty! Mine seems to have drowned when we had floods in early March. The stuff planted at the house for sale is looking nice though and the buyers were quite excited to have it pointed out to them.
I still have one squash left-I can’t remember the name of it at the moment.
Gina, I bet the buyers were excited – that would be a bonus! Hope that is going well.
“Doesn’t every farmhouse kitchen look like this?”
It should!
Question: what do you do with your schmaltz? I always end up with a lot of it, but I don’t know what to use it for.
Taylor, use your schmaltz for roux, or to fry potatoes
If you use it for roux, it really makes great gravy!
My kitchen table is full of just transplanted seedlings and potting soil. Things are starting to green up around here and I can’t wait to get going on another growing season.
So good to finally have some time to catch up on my favorite reading here. You’re much farther along on your spring clean up than I am. It’s still shocking to see what happened to your greenhouse.
I also suffer from the “helper-dog” syndrome times three now, with the little Winkster. But what would we do without them?
Nita, quick question — do you use grow lights for your seedlings? Or do you get enough natural light?
AMWD, how did spring get here so fast? I would definitely get in trouble if I had plants on the table
Wink is a doll, love the sleeping pic! I don’t think I could handle 3 – Trace is getting into being the trudger, he dutifully stays with me and sighs alot. I love it! He is like a young, old dog.
I don’t use lights, since I start my seedlings in the greenhouse, (or actually whats left of it) but I do use bottom heat to make up for that. Lights are great though, if you have them.
mmm, drifting off into dreams of self-sufficiency again….
Hayden – Soon, soon!
I have also recently found your blog(through WVfarmgirl) and I love coming back to read your posts.
I usually canned almost all of my tomatoes(sauce, salsa & bruschetta) and pickled the cucumbers and peppers/jalapenos. Last year I started freezing some cherry tomatoes as well as summer squash. This year I’m planting potatoes and winter squash.
I read your post about the Cabbage experiment and I would like to give that a try. The questions I have are:
1) If I read the post right, the cabbages were planted in the greenhouse?
2) The mature cabbages were left in the ground and you just harvest them throughout winter as you need them?
YDavis, Hi!
1) I did plant my cabbages in the greenhouse, but only to protect them from the deer. The varieties I used are hardy enough to grow outside and over-winter here in Western Oregon. The greenhouse is unheated. If you do this, in a colder zone, look for varieties like Tundra and expect to give them some add’l coverage.
2) I did just leave them intact and harvest as needed. In colder areas, you can pull the whole plant, shake off the dirt and store in a root cellar type situation. They won’t keep as long that way, but it still better than buying cabbage at the store, and of course there is always the sauerkraut route.
My kitchen table is always the catch all…things for the cows, bands for the calves, the mail, bills, dog and cat food, anything and all things land here.
Since most of my real company consists of Terry’s friends, oh well, when my kids drop by they grew up with everthing. The rest of whomever comes, well, I guess I am just too old to get embarrsed anymore.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/
Linda LOL, I know it is too late for me too be embarrassed too! Tables have a strange way of letting things pile up!
We eat quite a lot of potatoes, too, and I’ve been keeping track of how many pounds we eat per week: we average 15 lbs a week! More as the kids grow up and eat more, too.
Last year was the first time I grew potatoes, just some from the store that sprouted and it gave us a few pounds. I bought some seed potatoes this year and my question is this– about how many pounds of seed potatoes do you plant to get 600#??? I’d like to get at least that much and we expanded the garden area this year, so we can devote more space to potatoes and corn.
Jenny, I planted 50 pounds of seed potatoes to get the 600#, I didn’t cut my seed potatoes up though, so you could get by with less seed potatoes if you cut them.
Some varieties have higher yields in different soils and conditions – ask around and find out what does good in your area. To grow that many I had 5, 90′ rows placed 4 feet apart. I do not irrigate the potatoes, hence the wide spacing. You can plant closer but you need to have enough available soil for frequent hilling, or have some material like straw to mulch with.
They take up a lot of space!
You put up lots of potatoes. I’d like to try your straw bale method. Ours did good in our basement, we ran out in March. This year we will plant more. I will be able to can beans this year as the neighboor and I are going to go in on a pressure canner. Yeah. We did freeze quite a few and our supply is since depleted. Enjoyed your post. Thanks for sharing what works. I have learned SO much from you in the last year!
Kim, thank you for the kind words, congrats on the pressure canner, you will love it! It takes a lot of garden to grow enough for winter too – I think you guys did great!
I really enjoy reading your blog. Some enightening comments. About flat sufaces, though, when we moved out to the country (9 years ago – my, time flies when you’re having fun) we got rid of over a hundred large plastic bags of junk/trash and several dozen boxes given to Goodwill. We had swore we wouldn’t acquire that much stuff after moving out here (except for books and garden tools, but that stuff is essential to the good life!).
But I mentioned to my wife the other day that every flat surface around here seems to accumulate stuff. We don’t do it!! It just seems to appear. But we decided flat surfaces have their own kind of magnetism- they just attract stuff. After all, that’s what a flat surface is for, isn’t it?
DennisP, I hear you on the accumulation and the time flying! How does it happen?
As for the flat surface I have yet to figure that one out! But I am sure grateful for them!
Could you do a post sometime about what all those meals are that you get out of one chicken? And how do you make your chicken broth? No matter what I do, when I make chicken broth it is watery and tasteless. My only other option is to use those awful cubes! We have access to freshly slaughtered chickens here so it should be tasty but isn’t. Thanks.
Wayne, here is post about how I make the broth and what some of the meals are.
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/sunday-chicken/
And, I have a post in the works about one of the recipes. The best method I have found for the thick broth is to roast the chicken in a covered roaster, with 2 qts of water and the broth is always thick and rich, even with these broilers. I make a second broth and it is thick but I have to cook it at least 24 hours and it is never as thick as the first oven broth.
I’ll be interested in seeing how your’s turn out if you try the oven method.
Yes, our Winkster is a love and three dogs are too many, but if I had to have three, Wink truly has been a great addition. Trace cracks me up. Kiera is my big sigher.
Your photos are always such a feast for the eyes. Your seedlings look so healthy and strong. I have to fight against spindly growth, so that’s why I’m thinking I’ll try some grow lights.
Can’t wait to watch how your garden grows.
AMWD, I read something the other day about CKC dogs and their baby faces. I immediately thought of Wink!
Trace now sits on the couch when HD does, as if the BIG DOGS sit on the couch and no one else can or should.
When I used to start my seedlings in the house, they always got too spindly, even with a south facing bay window. It seemed the warmer temperature and inadequate light caused them to grow too fast. I have tried grow lights but then the seedlings are ready too soon, so I have settled on the greenhouse for starting – less mess, easier to water properly and the slower growth times out better with my outside conditions.
I can’t wait for the garden either, and the warm weather that comes with it!
Thanks! I re-read the article and do remember reading it before but forgot about it! I never thought to roast the chicken. I always boil it. I’ll let you know how it turns out next time I do chicken!
Home is where the heart is it looks like you have a Heavenly Heart . Love your garden treasures.
What??? Where’s the seed pots? My kitchen counters aren’t complete without seed pots! And, I’m glad my kitchen isn’t the only one that looks “lived in”, lol. Thanks for sharing.