Harvest...Tuesday?

Well, it’s not Monday but here are a few pics of this week’s goods from the garden. It’s been decided that starting with the fall crops that I am planting now I will measure what I bring in to try to keep a tally of the types of veggies and fruits, the days to harvest and the weights of harvests. I’d like to get some true comparisons and see what types of veggies do best for flavor , vigor, production. Right now production is key because we will be stocking an entirely empty freezer. But, next year I believe that flavor and production will be a battle. J

These pictures actually span about 10 days. The Sunflower was brought in and dried first. The carrots are pathetic, I just needed the room and finished clearing out their space. Loads of okra, some PEPH trailing in still, the new plantings will be putting on soon as well so I expect that harvest to ramp up this month Tobasco peppers come in 10 or 12 at a time every couple days, and a cucumber every few days as well. Sometimes they go into our salads and other times fridge pickles. J

Speaking of freezer… So my freezer is on the fritz. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. It’s an old 6’ stand up with the wire shelves that have the refrigerant run through them. We bought it not long after we got our first house, and subsequently boat. Original purpose for it was bait, fish filets, crab. It’s been repurposed a few times now. I have fixed it twice on my own. Once was a simple reset fuse thing, and the other was a problem with the seal. This time I’m just not sure. In 4 months it’s completely iced over. The freezer used to vacuum seal when I closed the door and for the past 2 months it hasn’t been doing that at all. Then the past 2 weeks it started doing it again! I don’t know what to think. I know the freezer is somewhere between 12 and 15 years old – I know we should probably just go and get a new freezer lest we lose everything at once. It’s happened before. Twice. Once fully - completely stocked, with venison, beef, chicken, veggies…it was devastating. I can’t imagine that happening again. Thankfully it was due to a hurricane and not the freezers malfunction but still! Ah, but there is this extremely frugal side of me that says just defrost it again and see what you can do with it. I’ve also recently heard that a ‘frost free’ freezer won’t keep meats and veggies nearly as long. I need the dependability of keeping our meats for a year. We hunt only in the winter for deer, and while we might take a hog in the summer we certainly do not count on it. It’s just to blazing hot to be sitting on stalk. We don’t have our dog anymore so we can’t go to the pigs, we have to wait for them. We tend to also only purchase large quantities of chickens in the fall/winter as their production slows down so we are able to swoop up 40 chickens for $60 or $70 – cleaned! So anyone with info on the whole freezer thing- I need help! LOL

Ah, that brings up something that I’ve been longing to do. My old crab traps are long gone and I didn’t really realize that I missed them until now. Actually the ocean itself. That salt air, the sticky sweat, the slime of the fish, the stench of the mud…. Oh so delightful. It’s time for these old memories to be made with my children. At nearly 4 years old the twins are well past due for the first squeals of delight that a blue crab scuttering away bring. Of course I’m well aware that with that comes the inevitable screams of terror when after telling them for the millionth time not to get too close they get a finger pinched and it scares the living daylights out of them… teehee. Yes, these are the memories I want to make with my kids. We’ve found a nice little fishing spot this summer that we frequent. It’s time to expand their horizons a bit more. I’m thinking this fall we may just need to make a little trip out to hangover island. It’s time to do some good old fashioned camping, FLORIDA style! :-D