Caenhill Countryside Centre (Sheep flipping): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guEyxTpevFo
Miahs workshop video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnR2VQT4Ysk&t=9s
Fall gardening video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI6ihmJSyAw&t=48s
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43 Comments
Barred Boar is one of our most prolific in cold Wyoming
Hi Jess! We are moving onto a little acreage next year and cannot wait to garden. I've been watching all your videos and listening to your podcasts and I love all of it. Thank you for the inspiration. We are pretty new to growing very much and I have no clue how to can or preserve anything. Not sure I'm ready to learn yet. So I'm super excited just to eat whatever we can grow. So I'll definitely be doing the seasonal eating. Again, thank you for all the inspiration and encouragement. We will be in TN soon (from WA state) and we are super eager to see what we can grow!! Love your whole message. 💙
Fall gardens are by far my favorite. There's just nothing like going out on a cold day and finding an abundance of produce.
I grow to eliminate as much of the grocery store as I can. I eat in season & can as much as I can. The Bible does say to prepare.
We have always eaten fresh as it comes in. This is my first year canning for winter. I planted extra tomatoes for spaghetti sauce, diced tomatoes, and salsa. Your canning videos have inspired me. I also found that I need more space for the garden as I am growing more and more vegetables we love to eat.
The rooster makes me smile. Having coffee in the morning outside my neighbors roosters greet me.
Blessings
I agree with what you just said, we do also eat seasonal but I want to save for later. And I have found that we don’t do the fresh justice.
We've had a milking cow and a horse get stuck on their backs in very small ditches (years apart).
We saw the horse do it and got the quad to pull it up, but the cow was during the night, and we almost lost her as she got fluid on her lungs. We stayed with her all night helping her stay in a sitting up position or she'd just lay out on her side with her head down. We kept a blanket on her and made a fire. She needed antibiotics but recovered. They can actually twist their gut and get bloat too.
LOL!! When you said sorry to your pepper plant for taking some off with the pepper! I do that too and thought maybe I was the only one to do that! Glad I'm not alone!!❤
This a dance I used to struggle with. We garden more for fresh eating than we do preserving. However, I found there is still enough to can small batches in small jars.
Hi Jess. I’m growing a heirloom purple zebra cherry tomato and the one you asked about looks like heirloom green zebra tomato. Just a guess but yes they. Are a little tart but delicious.i also on my tiny porch at my apartment in pots Amanda orange 🍊 tomatoes and sun sugar cherry tomato just to try something different. Now my deck is simply a landing to the front door and happily these gems have grown and produced enough to eat and make some sauce. Grateful for every little bit offered !
I have had a similar epiphany recently. I live in a colder climate and much further north, so we literally can not grow things from about the end of November to mid February (just not enough sunlight even if I could keep it warm enough). But I've spent 20+ years learning to can and preserve and when we moved to our current location in 2011, and had essentially unlimited room for gardening, I could finally grow huge amounts of ALL THE THINGS. And did, with curation every year as I learned.
But I've been in squirrel mode for a very long time, stuffing food into jars or dehydrators in August and September like a crazy woman, and then realizing that we mostly do still eat fresh 80% of the time. I literally vowed to NOT can much of anything this year JUST to eat down the food stores we already have. Because when there's a fresh or stored cabbage slowly going to waste in an extra fridge, I want to use that, not open up that jar of salsa or chicken soup I put up.
I do eat a ton of fresh peppers this time of year and then freeze or dry the rest, because I never buy fresh at the store, period. Peppers are always on the "dirty dozen" list and come from many many food miles away out of season, so I just stopped buying them at the store many years ago. But eating seasonally is glorious, and I was absolutely missing out on it while I was busy freezing blueberries for the winter, lol. Great episode!
I grow some things to eat fresh and some for preserving. Works pretty well! I eat most of my cherry tomatoes and preserve most of the full size. But still quite a few tomato or tomato and cucumber sandwiches and salads as well!
Peaches and pork are a great combo.
It's my first year gardening and my goal this year was to learn how to grow, what we like to grow, and how to cook with what's in season. So far it's going great. We eat as much as we can fresh and preserve whatever we think won't be eaten in time for it to go bad. If there's something we decide we don't like very much after trying it multiple different ways I don't waste my time preserving it, I just give it to our chickens and call it a lesson learned.
I grow some things to eat fresh and some things to preserve! Cherry tomatoes eat fresh but the full size I eat on sandwiches and in salads but also preserve. Cigs eat fresh and on sandwiches with fresh tomatoes! Ground cherries fresh eating. Most everything else I eat some fresh and preserve the rest.
We have hot humid and overcast (smoke from wildfires out west) weather here in Ontario so my tomatoes should be tasty!
I think saving anything for later over enjoying it in the now can be a sad way of living. It applies to our fancy dishes our favorite outfits bring in our cut flowers. Sometime we protect and or save things to much for the later and we rob ourselves of enjoying the now. Thanks for sharing.
Getting to the point of the video….I think this is a function of learning how to eat winter food. I definitely did not learn how to eat winter food growing up. I worked on it in my 30s but I didn't really get the hang of it until my now-40s. I think we were taught winter food is poverty food? Cabbages, rutabagas, turnips, etc have the cultural ring of poverty food and not being as good as what we could just go to the grocery store and buy. (<—- this is how I was raised, not reality.) I've had to unlearn that cabbage is something you can eat even if you can afford to eat everything else. And then I've had to learn to make it GOOD. And then, the natural result is less of a need to preserve so much in the summertime.
I've tried to grow holy basil for 2 years and it doesn't get more than 4 inches tall with about 6 leaves on it. All my other varieties grow just fine .
That tomato that looks eaten you thought by birds, we had the same tomatos looking that way in was hummingbirds. I guess the red color gets there attention.
We call the mama sheep, that are on their backs, turtling.
I try to grow for both. Somethings I feel overwhelmed with to the point of waste like cherry tomatoes. I’ve gotten good at growing but perfecting how to use it all not so much.
A lot of times i have these thoughts and then i watch your video and i just am in awe how God works in such a personal way. Fresh is the way to go 🙂 thanks for hanging out
We grow for putting up, but usually end up eating most of it. We always freeze baby corn, greens, berries, fruit, peas and green beans for the winter. We have too much shade to get huge harvests so small freezer bags work great for a speedy preservation.
I got several pineapple majors over 2 lbs this year
I grow for fresh eating as well as preserving. I happily have my fill of tomato amd cucumber salad dur8ng the summer because I absolutely refuse to buy fresh tomatoes. Having said that, I grow enough so that I can freeze peppers for chili during the winter as well.as freezing my roasted tomato and basil soup, which I thoroughly enjoy in the cooler months. 8 tell people it tastes like a bowl of summer!
I do a little freezing but since it's just me & my husband ( and a couple of neighbors ) we fresh eat it and it's so dang good !!
'I suppose I planted it." That is me walking through the garden and answering where something came from.
Whoa… wait – Jessica isn't going to order a ton of seeds this year? For real? Are you okay. Jess?!? I love when you share your seed orders.
Green Zebra tomato?
One of my Thorburn's came out with green spots all over the bottom and sides; looked a lot like that. Weird.
I think it depends on your weather. If we had a long growing season like you guys do, I think I would do the same. But ours is short and furious. We try to eat as much fresh as possible. But preserving the extras is definitely a priority because it’s really hard to grow a fall garden and a winter garden is out of the question.
Good question at the end ! Personally as a 65 year old that still helps provide for my family too I don’t have the ability where I’m living now in an apartment to grow much ( except my pots of tomatoes and foraging from bushes and trees) . I would seriously prepare a years worth of food as well enjoy the season. In today’s wiggly prospects of our future and expenses to take advantage to prep is very beneficial. If God so willingly provides we should prep ! Who knows how it may benefit others Including our families in the unknown future. Not dismissing enjoyment in the present and health with seasonal available food as one would and should happily indulge in!! As He says to take our time , a step back , no worries no stress ,and He will Provide as promised .just my thoughts 💭 as in my life
Jess you always are in touch with what is best for you Miah and family and even others. I believe you already have that answer. ❤
I don’t like preserving green beans but love fresh so I gorge in the summer and don’t eat them from the store in the winter!
That yellow tomato you were trying to ID looks like 'Pork Chop' from Wild Boar Farms.
Being single, and old, lol, if I grow something and have an overabundance, I can't eat it fast enough before it rots. I've also preserved that overabundance and forgotten it was in the freezer and it ends up going to waste anyway. So for me, the answer is threefold:
1) Eat whatever comes in, right away, as much as I can stand
2) If there is an overabundance (hello garlic and onions), I freeze and freeze dry for the future
3) I give away to neighbors and friends much of my overabundance, be that seedlings or production.
I think you're going at it the right way. Having tomato sandwiches, only during the summer, makes them that much better. Same with fresh fruit and other produce. Eating seasonally seems to be a good way to eat. In the same thought, make sure you plant enough to store away for hard times.
I grow for both because if I don't I will experience the tomato disappointment in the off season and if I didn't do any canning I'm stuck in a situation I created. Not doing that. Canning and enjoying eating in season. My dad used to say during harvest times, "Suck it up Buttercup" when I complained about all the harvest time work.
We had a mini donkey cast itself overnight. Jelly survived but it was touch and go for about a week. His legs did not work and he'd banged his head onto the ground.. Its quite frightening. So glad your ewe is ok..
We eat our fill and the part that's left gets dried and frozen
Because of where I live having a winter garden as you describe is not possible unless I grow it indoors. Which I do have an indoor garden of sorts,..Have not bought lettuce in the winter for 2 years now. But, although I eat (gorge) seasonally, the primary focus of my gardens and foraging is on preservation for the winter. The nature of the beast one could say. If I lived where I could grow year round, I would certainly embrace that but would be hesitant to fully go there – too many weather factors I feel. Because of my environment, I will say that although I can't get a whole lot of tomatoes that will ripen on the vine, or even blush, I still pick everything green at years end and ripen it indoors. Although I can agree with your assessment, letting them ripen indoors from green is still better than buying tomatoes from the store and certainly better than wasting all the green tomatoes. End of the season my house floors are covered with green tomatoes…lol. We do what we have to do. Good video.
Last spring was my first year gardening and I found that gardening was an amazing distraction but even better, the brassicas, greens and flowers that were in my fall garden was life altering. I am used to seasonal depression since I was a young adult but this winter was the first in 2 decades that I was not struggling and the bugs disappeared from the garden too! I'm sold, since I'm also in sc I guess I'm starting my seeds next week too😂
I look forward to actually opening the blinds and seeing life and color outside that I helped create. It's all fresh eating here, other than herbs, im still figuring out how to grow stuff, I love the journey
Our wild artichoke patch has been in our woods edge forever, and it really has not spread more than we have let it. And by forever at least 30+ yrs. That when I first came to this farm and they were already here.
As for what I do with my harvests, I'm a solo eater so I eat what I can when it comes in and put up the rest. Since I live with friends for now I don't can much (taking up the whole kitchen for that long makes me feel in the way) but I dehydrate and ferment a good bit. But that's just so far. Next year I'll be living somewhere else, with more land, better soil, and a better climate (YAY!!!) and I'll be trying to grow for a small market stand. I'm exciting and nervous; they're so similar.
As someone who lives in an area that only has about 95 growing days I don't get to eat much seasonally from my own place. Even brassicas are frozen dead by mid October if not earlier. It is definitely best eaten in season and I know my body craves the in season produce but I have to plant to preserve most of it or buy it at the store. In your area where you can grow 9-10 months out the year it would be a lot easier and make way more sense to eat seasonally.