Harvesting Heaven

The harvest here this year has been unbelievable. Now, the cherries and blueberries didn’t do real well, but the other fruits and veggies are coming on strong. Because of that, we’ve decided to break down and get another freezer. This one is a chest freezer that will be dedicated to meat and fish. Right now, our upright is packed so tight I can’t get in the blackberries I froze the other day. While I’m waiting for them to deliver the new freezer, I thought I’d share a bit of the harvest we have here at Happy Acres.

If you’d like a detail accounting of our complete harvest, visit my hubby’s blog post.

I’ve been harvesting the blueberries since June 1 after the asparagus quit. So far I’ve harvested 8 pounds as opposed to 16 pounds last year. However, harvesting is not yet done. One of our new variety, Chandler, has huge berries.

Chandler blueberry
Chandler blueberry

My favorite is Elizabeth which has medium size berries and for it’s first year of production has done real well. Lots still to pick but waiting for them to turn.

Then the blackberries are crazy. Hubby does most of the harvesting of them while I freeze them and then try to find a place in the freezer! So far he’s harvested 35 pounds.

Some of our blackberries
Some of our blackberries

Here are some of them in the kitchen freezer waiting to be bagged and moved the the basement freezer.

Frozen blackberries waiting to be bagged and moved.
Frozen blackberries waiting to be bagged and moved.

I just finished making another batch of blackberry leather. Other goodies I make out of our blackberries include jello, syrup, popsicles, and cobbler.

I dried and packaged our first bunch of small tomatoes. We use alot of different ones specifically for drying. The ones I dried for these bags included Sungold, Supersweet 100, Jaune Flamme, Black Cherry, Juliet, and Mountain Magic. Sungold are my favorite for eating.

Our first three bags of dried tomatoes
Our first three bags of dried tomatoes

While making a pizza the other day, I used the last bag from last year’s harvest. This was the first year we made it through to the next season’s harvest.

We can’t forget squash and zucchini. If everyone grew a couple squash plants we could end world hunger. Well, that may be a little extreme, but we do get a lot of veggies from these plants. We’ve been trying to think of all the ways to eat it. We’ve grilled it, made fritters, added it to the soup mix for this winter, and put in frittatas and bread. I added it to a pita pizza I made for lunch several days ago. Yum!

Pizza with zucchini
Pizza with zucchini

If you’re not into vegetable gardening, let me show you a couple pictures from the slope garden. This garden has been a challenge, but I think it’s finally taken hold.

Looks like the guys are here with the freezer. Time to go reorganize.