Sunday, September 4, 2016

Harvest 2016

This was our first year growing yellow onions. We've always had bunching onions, but this was new for us. We planted about a quart of tiny sets that cost about a dollar. We ended up with over 40 pounds. Great return on investment, right? We hope this will take us through most of the year. Next year it will be more. We have a bunch more still growing that we started from seed last winter. They are similar in size to these. I'm happy I've saved all my mesh produce bags which are very handy for onions.

We've got over 220 pounds of chicken in the freezer now and are out of room, so the rest is getting canned. They were huge again this year, with the males averaging around 12 pounds. The pullets are about 8 pounds each. I'm thinking it will be wonderful to have canned chicken on hand this winter when I don't feel like cooking much.

So I'm in the house canning the chicken while the rest of the family is harvesting tomatoes this evening. We're having another terrific harvest this year and as usual planted way too much of some things. I always seem to be optimistic in the spring, overwhelmed in the fall. We have hundreds of pounds of tomatoes out there. Friends can sure give me a call and come get some if they want! If you take some, I won't have so many to can. (I like to can several years worth at a time of any one thing. This harvest should take us through the next few years for tomatoes!)
This is the first variety we're picking. They are Black Beauty. These were prolific! They grew into fantastic strong seedlings, then vines and matured earlier than all the other varieties. We began with these and we have 3 more varieties left to gather in.