Garlic and Greens

These images are from late October, planting garlic Melissa sent from New York and nestling the tiny kale into the straw bedding. Only a small section of the garlic sent greens up, so I'm hopeful for the rest of the crop. I think I'm most excited about three cloves of elephant garlic as big as my hand that my friend in Tennessee grew. This is the first time I've devoted so much of the garden to garlic and I can't wait until early summer, when we get to harvest.

In the meantime, the mostly uncovered cabbage, kale, and broccoli at the Dannys' is getting ravaged by the cold. I did collect some beautiful red mustard and old-fashioned curly mustard yesterday from under the row cover at Penland...so tender and tasty!!

Pig n' Chicken Nickin'

Here are some images of the pig butchering. The coolers and buckets have bones for stock, fat for lard, scraps for sausage. brined bacon for curing, and brined ham and shoulder for smoking. The bottom images are for scrapple. I wound up with about 40 lbs. of split pea soup, a gallon of lard, 50 lbs. of sausage, five different types of bacon, and 45 lbs. of scrapple. Not too shabby!

Winter 2011-2012

Well, the growing season's over. 40 lbs. of onions this year and the garlic is in the ground. Some of the turnips and beets left over from the summer are the size of volleyballs! The kale and lettuce are nestled into the straw and under the row cover. The harvest was abundant this year with about 200 lbs. of potatoes, 100 lbs. of sweet potatoes, and over 100 lbs. of winter squash. These are all stored safely in the Dannys' basement. Firewood is stacked and both of our freezers are filled with pork...all set for winter. Just made a couple of gallons of spicy kraut...Welcome home Melissa!