Fall is here!

I am beyond excited. Really. I am so thankful for the cooler weather and all that fall brings with it.

Our country garden did rather pathetically this year for several reasons ... Corban, the main gardener, was much too busy with work. Brianna, the main helper at home, was much too busy helping me, other mothers, old people and keeping up with her sewing business. Tylor, the muscles behind the operation and the go-to-man for anything dirty, moved out. And me ... well ... my health was beyond bad (but, praise the Lord, it's been really good the last month or so due to something new I am trying ... but more on that later once it proves to be true and not just 'coincidence'). So anyway, like I said, pathetic country garden. That's ok. We did get some tomatoes, a good bit of green beans, a good amount of winter squash and a puny showing of sweet potatoes.

Our main plan with the country garden was to grow produce for the farmers market. However, due to all the reasons mentioned above, it was just not happening. NEXT YEAR (Lord willing) we plan on just selling plants that have been started from seed. Starting and growing seeds happens at a time of year when the head gardener is not as busy with other work. All of his started plants did beautifully well this past season, so it seems logical to put our focus on that instead of trying to grow a bunch of produce that we may or may not be able to take care of.

Our city garden provided a steady supply of kale, lettuce, spinach and beet greens (well, not so steady in the hotter months) as well as some more seeds. Corban planted a few small rows of sweet potatoes and those did very well.

It was nearly dark outside but you can kind of see the results from one plant.

Our friends got a good deal on apples so we purchased 8 bushels - 2 for eating and 6 for canning. So far we have canned 4 bushels of applesauce (which, if anyone is curious, comes about to about 60 quarts). So, that's 60 quarts of homemade applesauce with JUST APPLES for $36. Not bad. Of course it would have been nice to get hold of some free apples, however these apples were pretty cheap and in VERY good shape ... which means a lot less work. The remaining two for processing will become apple pie filling and dehydrated apples.

This time around instead of using my vitamix to process the sauce, we borrowed a sister's "Back to Basics Food Strainer and Sauce Maker". It sure did make processing the apples a lot easier! All we did was quarter the apples (leaving the skin and cores in place), boiled them till soft, put them through the strainer and water bathed them. Easy! I might have to purchase my own mill if the budget allows. Here are a few photos of that:

Using the wood stove provided a lot more cooking space.

Running the apples through the mill/strainer.

In other news, I think I am going to try and have this blog on facebook. I have not had a personal facebook account in a long time but I want to see if having a fb page for this blog will be profitable. If you are interested in joining me, here is the link to the page: Frugal Home and Health on facebook. I have done nothing with the page yet ... so please be patient! Like I said, I am not even sure it will be worth my time but we'll see.

That's all for now. Have a great day!