More Harvest II - July 24, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

When I got up at 5AM on Wednesday, the forecast had changed and there wasn’t to be rain until late afternoon. So I was rather lack-a-daisical about getting out to do the trash shed.

I decided to go check the green beans in the Big garden and harvested some. Then I checked the broccoli and it needed harvested. I went to the Small garden and found lots of zucchini and summer squash, not too big for a change. Then I checked the cukes and found a lot that were pretty big.

Once all the produce was inside where it was cool, I went and tackled the trash shed. The recycling hadn’t been done since April so it took me a while. I think I finished about 10AM.

I got a shower and rested for a while. My son came up at 11:30AM and we left at noon to go to the dump.

In the Small garden I had found a regular pumpkin, the cukes heading for the woods to the north, kabocha squashes that had escaped the Small garden, as had 3 white pumpkins.

The white pumpkins had enormous flowers and there was a small bee in one.

I wandered around the yard before going inside, first to check how the peach tree was holding up. Then to see how ripe the elderberries were. There were new daylilies along the Fence gardens and the Black-eyed Susans in the wildflowers were still going strong.

Once I’d had a shower and rested and been to the dump, I started working on the produce. I put all the cukes in cold water in jars in the extra fridge. I’m thinking I might make some sort of pickles once I get enough.

It was around 2PM when I realized I still had not unloaded the dehydrators. They were still running. So I did the garlic. Some of the trays had pieces that still had not dried even after 26 hours at 125F. I hope I got them all. I also added the desiccants and oxygen packs to each jar.

Once I had that done, I got started on the green beans, got them washed up and into the freezer.

My brother wanted to make broccoli slaw with some of the broccoli but he didn’t have a recipe, usually just winged it. So I held off processing the broccoli, leaving it soaking in cold water.

When he got home, he selected how much broccoli he wanted and I set about cooking the bacon. The slaw’s ingredients are: broccoli in bite size pieces, bacon cooked until crispy, grated Cheddar cheese (but we used a Mexican blend), and a dressing made of mayo, lemon juice, celery salt, pepper, and paprika. He thought the dressing was bland so I put a few drops of Tabasco sauce in to add some zip.

We didn’t end up with all the bacon, as I managed to badly burn the last 3 pieces. I was busy processing the broccoli for the freezer and forgot them. But the slaw, the first time I had had it, was really good.

After supper my brother and I went up and loaded the truck until it was about 3” from the broken leaf spring. When I got back to the house, I discovered we were to have heavy rain in the night, so I covered the mulch and tied the tarp down well. The chair anchors the side the wind comes from.

On Thursday I asked both my general helper and my #2 intern to come at 6AM. There was to be rain until 4AM and it would stop until 11AM. I hoped we’d have the truck unloaded by then. If we got done early, I hoped to get the mulch hay from the barn and mulch the garlic area in the Big garden.