Aug 28

The neighbours picked the second planting of corn today. They bagged about 60 quarts plus the many ears that we have eaten in the last week. A total of about 540 ears have been picked from the second planting. There is still several ears left that we will eat in the next two weeks. The third planting should be ready then.

We have a problem. It looks as if a raccoon has discovered the corn and is getting its fill every night. I set a live trap, baited with an egg and we will see what happens. I have posted pictures of some of the damage.

Here is proof of the marauder.

At least he is eating a good portion of the ears. In years past the raccoons will pull down an ear and eat one or two bites and than move on to the next ear.

A perfect ear. We have had very little damage from ear worms this year. The variety is Ambrosia. This is the commercial variety that is grown locally and is my favorite.
Molly and Matthew decided to help.

Not only did Matthew decide to help, he also helped himself to an ear that had just been blanched. This is the best part of a garden, right up there with the first new potatoes.

Molly's Garden

I did not plant all of the available space in the house garden this year due to the mega garden. As a result Katie and Molly planted their own gardens. Molly picked her corn yesterday and we had it for supper today. Here are some photos of Molly's garden.

Aug 23

This was somewhat of a slow week. We did not can anything out of the mega garden, although Rachel canned some applesauce on Friday. We have little watermelons, but I do not think that there are enough growing days left before the first frost for them to ripen. We have cantaloupe that will probably make it.

The cucumbers are coming on strong. We will be bottling pickles starting next week up until frost in late September or early October if we are lucky.

The neighbors are going to harvest the second planting of corn this coming Saturday. I picked a dozen ears today for supper. It was young and very sweet. We are feeding the corn stalk from the first planting to the goats along with the jumbo summer squash.

The wind was blowing when I took these pictures as you can tell by looking at the corn.

The cucumbers have recovered well from the earlier mishap and are loaded with blossoms.

Aug 16

I didn't get around to posting these last week, better late than never. We harvested the first planting of corn a day before these pictures were taken. Everything is doing well. Between us and friends that have picked the beans we have canned or frozen about 260 quarts of beans so far. They are slowing down but are still producing blossoms.

Aug 15

I am a week late posting these photos. We picked and processed corn on Friday the 15th. We averaged 95 ears per 75 foot row of corn for a total of around 760 ears from 8 rows. This was the first planting of four. We gave a lot away but ended up freezing around 50 quarts. It was a few days early, but I was going to be out of town when it was at its peak. It is better to have young corn them old corn.

Here are the field hands ready to work.
Old MacCaleb had a farm.....

Hannah is actually taller than the corn.

The plantation Governor

Here is how we kept track of how much corn we picked, and yes that is a roll of TP.

Self portrait--it is a Rachel thing.

It doesn't look like much but there are over 600 ears in the back of the truck. Final count was 762 ears of corn, about 63 dozen.

Aug 9

Most of the garden is recovering from the wind storm on the 6th. We took a week off from canning beans and gave away everything that was picked this last week. The person that took them was able to freeze 40 quart's worth. We are giving the next week's worth away to someone else.

It looks like we will be starting on corn this coming Friday or Saturday, and we have a lot. We have frozen most of the corn in years past, but I would like to bottle some this year just to have on hand. Frozen corn tastes better than canned, but I would like to have some in storage that does not require electricity to maintain.

I got the last of the potatoes set up using the PC soaker lines. The only thing that is not being watered by drip now is the first and second planting of corn.

The Juab county fair was this last week. Rachel, Katie, and Molly entered produce from both the mega garden and the house garden. Katie and Molly both have their own gardens at the house. We received many blue ribbons. Rachel got a blue ribbon for her homemade whole wheat bread. She got a score of 98 out of 100. It would have been perfect, but she had a small split in the side. The taste was perfect, none better on earth. I should know, I ate a big piece of the winning loaf as I was carrying it out to the car at the end of the fair.

The pea vines are being fed to the goats. We should get another week or two worth of feed from what we have left. I am still watering them to keep them green.