Our garden exploded this year. It was fun to have a big garden and be able to plant as much as we wanted, but it sure it a lot of work! Weeding, watering, and harvesting as been our lives lately. Luckily we did most of it before Cooper arrived, but we have been busy. Dayton and the boys have been a great help. They love to help harvest and enjoy going out to the fruit trees and garden everyday to check on the produce. The boys even helped us can the applesauce. We made 70 fish quarts one weekend. Phew. They sure love their applesauce and go through it like crazy so hopefully we have more of a supply this year.
In total we canned 163 quarts and 87 pints of food- applesauce, pasta sauce, salsa, tomatoes, pickles, and peaches. We literally used every can that we had in the house and we still have more produce than we know what to do with. I'm sure grateful for our big chest freezer. I guess it is good that many of our fruit trees had their "off" year.
This year we planted lettuce, kale, spinach, strawberries, peas, carrots, herbs, pumpkins, various squashes, watermelon, cantaloupe, egg plant, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and corn.
People ask why we do this to ourselves with such little kids... and being pregnant. Why? Because I love having fresh produce that I can pick whenever I want. There is jut something fun getting fresh herbs or produce for dinner that night. It also teaches my children where food comes from- no we don't just show up at the grocery store. It also teaches them work. Hunter already spent many hours this summer helping me water, weed, and harvest. Carter helped too. It is my hope they can learn good work ethic. Plus, food from the garden just tastes a MILLION times better.
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