What To Do With Your Produce

So, you come pick fresh produce at a PYO farm.  And then you go home and have a wonderful stir fry and a refrigerator full of fresh fruits and veggies.  You suddenly ask yourself, "What on earth will I do with all of this before it spoils?"  Don't despair.  Home food preservation is easy and possible and there are lots of resources to learn how to do it.  I highly recommend taking a canning class.  I have been to one at a feed store and at an aquaponics farm.

For starters, the PYO website that we are listed with has lots of information for canning and preserving all of your fresh goodies.  Just think how great it will be this winter when you make a warm stew with vegetables that you picked and preserved this summer.  You can go to our PYO website Here.  For instance, we will have corn and you might want to preserve it.  Here are some links that will help you out:  How To Can Corn or Several Ways to Can Corn

I found this really great website for any kind of home preservation of food.  I am linking you to the tomato section but as you can see this is a fantastic resource National Center for Home Food Preservation.  I am putting this link on my list of links on this blog.  Great information!  I will be putting up other useful links for making jams and jellies soon so stay tuned!

We just got a wonderful rain.  We have the garden nearly planted and really wanted a good, soaking rain.  It came at just the right time.  You know you have become a farmer when you think this way :)  However, Ronny has been doing a lot of research on irrigation and is putting in a great system so that we don't have to totally rely on good weather.  We have strung hoses to all the blackberry plants and installed a tiny little plastic spigot at each plant.  The hoses are all connected and water simultaneously.  The spigots at the blackberries deliver one gallon of water per hour.  It was so easy to turn the water on and then off after a few hours the other night.  We found a great rain water cistern on the property that is full and over 20 feet deep.  It is fed continuously.  Ronny will be connecting the cistern water supply to the garden hose system and we will be able to water easily and efficiently any time.  You can get supplies for this type of irrigation at Home Depot or Lowe's but we found a good soure Here.

Efficient watering

As I have mentioned we will be hosting the children from our church preschool.  I found a great source for activities for kids in the garden.  It is called Kid's Garden by Witney Cohen, Life Lab Science Program.  It has a lot of wonderful activities.  It suggests a garden design called a pizza garden.  I will post pictures and updates once we get started.  The children will begin May 3 so stay tuned!

Blackberry rows

These are the blackberry rows before planting and the water hose before irrigation was put in.  All the plants are doing well and are 6-9 inches tall already.  We chose to leave grass paths between so your feet will stay clean when you come pick!  I will be putting some garden pictures up soon.  We have lots of little green babies poking through the ground.  The rain today and a warm week next week will really bring the garden on.

Please note that we have chosen to pinch all strawberry blossoms off this season to ensure a heavy berry production next year.

Happy Farming!