The Farmhouse Kitchen - Day Three

Sometimes our harvest is small and kind of odd shaped.  But, small batch freezing and/or canning can really add up.  I have tried very hard to let nothing go to waste.

Odd shaped cucumbers, not ripe yet tomatoes and a bell pepper.

There's one okra pod cut into wheels in this bag! 

We have one grape tomato plant that has been bearing very well.  We have 3 okra plants that have just begun to bear.  I picked one okra pod on Saturday, and after slicing it into wheels, I threw it in with the grape tomatoes, when cooking them in preparation for freezing.  At least one vegetable soup this fall or winter will have a few bites of okra!

An Okra Plant

There were just enough of the regular size tomatoes to freeze one bag of tomatoes.
 

 

Canned or frozen tomatoes are beautiful:

Our three bell pepper plants are loaded with fruit that will need to be picked soon.  I plan to make stuffed peppers to eat now and some to freeze for later.  I will freeze them individually so that only the number needed will be used.

I have to confess that we have not been able to keep up with eating all the cucumbers we have grown.  I already have more than enough pickles.  We have eaten them marinated in vinegar and just plain in salads and also, peeled with a little salt and pepper.  We have given some away.  They are delicious, but there are too many of them.

In the Refrigerator Produce Drawer

There are still plenty of cucumber blossoms on the plants growing on this trellis.

 

The extras won't go completely to waste, though.  They will go into the lasagna/compost garden to help fertilize the soil there

Here's a new cucumber that came up in the lasagna garden from a discarded cucumber's seeds. There's plenty of time in our long growing season for it to produce before frost.

It has been amazing to see how much produce we have been able to get from our one raised bed garden.  I'm already excited about what we can grow next spring.  I'm also itching to plant some fall vegetables soon.