Friday, October 05, 2012

Scavenging for food

I didn't have as many more sweet potatoes to dig today as I originally thought.  The vines were everywhere, so you really couldn't tell where they started or stopped.  Anyway, I was able to get them all in the wheelbarrow.  I'm pretty sure that's more than we can eat this winter.  I will cook, peel, mash, and freeze a lot of them like I did last year.  I'm thinking there's almost two bushels there.  I did not plan to have this many sweet potatoes.  The first twelve plants I ordered arrived looking totally dried out and dead, but I planted them anyhow; when I emailed the guy and told him, he sent twelve more.  The dead plants came to life, and the second dozen did well.  I did not lose a single plant out of twenty-four.  


Here are odds and ends I found in the garden today.  The tomatoes aren't anything to brag about.  The peppers are really nice.  The eggplants were a surprise.  They aren't real big, but I can slice them and make eggplant parmeson for the two of us.  
This was a good tomato year at the first of the season, and then bugs and drought and blight took hold.  However, I've been able to scrounge enough for Cliff's evening salad, right along.  
I had a few pears left after I made pear honey the other day, and left them on the porch.  Lo and behold, they mellowed out and turned out to be good eating pears.  So I stole some more of them today.


I tried to choose the most unblemished ones and wrapped them individually in newspaper, and put them in this five-gallon bucket.  Wrapped like this, if any of them gets a rotten spot, the rot won't spread to the ones next to it.  They should be mellow, sweet, and good in ten days or so.  Maybe less.  We have been eating onions and carrots from the garden all this time, but I will soon be buying onions.  I used the last of my potatoes some time back.  

5 comments:

  1. Either you have a small wheelbarrow or those are huge potatoes!

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  2. It's a big wheelbarrow. I'm fairly sure there are around two bushels there.

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  3. I think you should pick all the pears you can, before they rot on the tree. I don't think the bank would care. My mother would have, you remind me alot of her, she wouldn't let anything go to waste.

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  4. Every thing looks wonderful. Your garden really did provide lots of good eating for you this year.And with the things you've frozen, there will be good eating for awhile too.

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  5. At least you don't have an entire field of dreaded corn, you might survive. (grin)

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