Thursday, October 07, 2010

garden harvest

With the frost date rapidly approaching, I have been working hard to get ready to bring in the harvest which required needing refrigerator space which required cleaning and organizing and cooking what was in there already. Phew!
But because it has been so rainy, I have put off this harvest business until this past weekend which meant the entire Saturday morning found me feverishly making pear and applesauce, cooking the last bag of store-bought carrots for baby food, baking bread and scrubbing out the fridge.

Here's a photo summary:

Baby cherry tomatoes still producing, the rest of the tomato plants were harvested and pulled out of the ground.


Sugar baby watermelons. The ones on the right didn't get as ripe before the plants died. The one on the left, while not as pink as we are used to has a fantastic flavor. And that was the only one that got that pink.


The celery is great and is being eaten liberally and enjoyed. Definitely an unmitigated success!

I didn't grow these peaches but this is how I froze them. Blanched to get the skins off, quartered them and put them in plastic freezer bags with a drizzle of apple juice to help keep the color.

I will be soon harvesting the carrots to make more of these, baby food cubes. My girls eat carrots, peas, green and yellow beans, lima beans, sweet potato and squash all prepared this way. Baby Laura will eat the cooked pieces as finger food but Kate still doesn't chew well so she needs it be pureed.

I leave you with a traditional Thanksgiving hymn, Come, Ye Thankful People, Come which we have been working on learning during our Bible time.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

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