Harvest Time Knives!!

[treefarmer]

We butchered (processed) 2 Seminole Pumpkins today. Here's how it went:

3 pumpkins that were volunteers. Compare to the size of the Queen #49 (4 1/4")

Miss Joy attempting to split a pumpkin with my old Case stainless butcher knife. Sometimes she scares me!

Inside revealing lots of meat and a pile of seeds. Seed are salvaged and will be available to plant next season.

Removing the seeds.

Placed 2 of the 3 in the pressure cooker. 10 minutes at 15 pounds.

Took about half hour to get up to pressure.

Sliced and cooked, they seem to melt down. They took several hours to cool to the point where the flesh could be removed from the outer skin. No pictures of this, I was on the tractor and when I got back to the house the product was bagged and ready for the freezer.

Each bag contains 2 cups, the right amount for a pie or 3 rolls of pumpkin bread.

We still have a small patch of pumpkins that were planted early in August that are about to mature.
Treefarmer

[Dinadan]

Cool post, Treefarmer. I butchered two pumpkins this week myself, but just to make jack-o-lanterns. I like a thin blade knife for cutting that thick pumpkin meat: what I used was not too different from what your wife is using.

[313 Mike]

Great post, Phillip. Very smart of you (or should I say your lovely wife) to package them up in just the right measurements for a pie or bread. Considering all the stuff you freeze, I sure hope you have some sort of generator backup for your chest freezer! Especially considering the crazy weather you all get down there with storms and such. I would be worried about losing all that frozen goodness in a power outage. I am sure you have a contingency plan though like any Marine worth his salt...

[treefarmer]

Thanks for the kind words, fellers!
We enjoy putting up the produce. We should probably "can" more vegetables but the frozen stuff usually tastes better. I'd like to "can" some venison this season, been reading about the process.
Mike, we do have a generator that kept us "frozen" during the 11 days without power during Hurricane Michael. I keep it "exercised" every month, run it for a few minutes, shut off the fuel and let her run out of gas.
Treefarmer

[zp4ja]

No harvest yet but aiming for that. Been a couple years since I did veggies other than in pots. Weeding the in ground garden today. Got various "determinate " bush tomatoes planted in pots. Easy peasy.
More pics to come when I finish weeding, planting, and seeding...

My CASE XX 6265 Hunter in pocket for cutting tasks. All I need...

Jerry

[zp4ja]

Weeding is out of control. I have weed cloth but they grow above it. Makes it easier to pull. I use a roll of plastic bender board and stakes for the water reservoir. Work in progress but I will weed and plant in sections.

Some hot and mild peppers going in. Have 3 more
planting rings but need 3 more plants. Weeded area is before pic of weeds. Lots of natural compost.

EDIT: Added planted, caged from critters and watered in photos.

[Dinadan]

Weeding is out of control.

Cool post, Jerry. Weeds get out of control real fast here along the Gulf Coast. I am harvesting blueberries right now, but I do not need a knife for them. I do have scallions that I use a knife to harvest, but I am embarrassed to post a photo because of all the weeds!

[zp4ja]

Mel, please post away. Weeds happen! The weeds added a ton of natural mulch soil, looks rich. Love scallions and other root vegetables.
Been a couple years for that plot. Chipping away at it. Post away my friend. A knife in your pocket is still a harvest knife. Will need it soon.

Jerry

[Reverand]

Weeding is out of control. I have weed cloth but they grow above it. Makes it easier to pull. I use a roll of plastic bender board and stakes for the water reservoir. Work in progress but I will weed and plant in sections.

Some hot and mild peppers going in. Have 3 more
planting rings but need 3 more plants. Weeded area is before pic of weeds. Lots of natural compost.

EDIT: Added planted, caged from critters and watered in photos.

I don't really plant much of a garden anymore, but I do plant a few things (tomatoes, garlic, aloe vera) in random places around my yard.
I take thin cardboard from cereal boxes and things like that, lay it down in layers around the plant, then cover it with straw or grass clippings. I cover approximately a 1-foot radius around the plant, just far enough away that I can mow up close.
The cardboard kills out grass and weeds, holds in moisture, and breaks down into compost by wintertime. It has even helped to build up the poor soil here on my plot of land.

[DM11]

Had this Pruner out in the garden today helping cutting and trimming.

[treefarmer]

Sorry about no knives in the pictures but rest assured there was a knife in my pocket as I wandered around the garden taking a few pictures to get this thread going again!

Jerryd had asked about peas yesterday morning in the First Cup thread, these are Zipper Cream field peas starting to put on.

Jalapeños

Bells

Sweet Banana peppers

Cukes

A volunteer patch of Seminole Pumpkins came up when we disked last year's patch this spring.

The punkins are growing well.

Treefarmer

[Quick Steel]

Phil, such an abundant crop of fine produce is surely the result of much labor and care. Congratulations on the result.

[313 Mike]

Nice posts Jerry and Phillip, very cool to see what others are doing around the country. I have ten different varieties of heirloom indeterminate tomatoes going, some favorites and a few "new to me"'s. The harvest of sugar snap peas is slowing down with the hot weather, but the serviceberry bush is pushing out some tasty fruits. My tomatoes are doing well, peppers not so much. I've got jalapenos, habaneros, ghosts, and a peach superhot as well, but they are not growing with much enthusiasm. My bush beans are all getting ready to flower and the mini jack pumpkins have some lush foliage but aren't vining quite yet. Some of the flowers are starting to come on, lots of calendulas, coreopsis, some coneflowers, the penstemon is finishing up. Sunflowers are still only a couple feet tall, but I staked the ones that look especially promising. Last year's giant was 13 feet tall before it came down in a storm.
Good luck everyone with your plantings, wether it be a tomato or two in the yard, or a full garden bursting forth, it's all good.

Mike

[TPK]

Sorry about no knives in the pictures but rest assured there was a knife in my pocket as I wandered around the garden taking a few pictures to get this thread going again!
Treefarmer

Nice garden Philip!

[treefarmer]

Thanks for the kind words on the garden, fellers!
It is such a wonderful feeling to watch a garden produce vegetables and then enjoy them on your own table. It's a lot easier to buy them at the market or store but gardening has been in our blood way too long to completely quit.
Treefarmer

[treefarmer]

Got enough of these:

to make these:

Used the Mrs.Wages Lime Pickle recipe.
Treefarmer

[treefarmer]

Time to add another picture of harvest from the garden:

These 6-quart jars are filled with sliced red and yellow sweet banana peppers, a few slices of Mammoth jalapeño and several sliced-up onions. The jars are then filled with boiling hot mixture of 2:1 vinegar and sugar liquid and then sealed with a lid and band. If all goes right a little later you will hear the lids (seals) click as they draw a vacuum on the jar and they are ready for the pantry. The liquid is good on all sorts of greens, collards, mustard, turnips, etc. Also goes good poured over a taco salad. The peppers and onions are crisp and work as a condiment on hotdogs and burgers.
This stuff is not what a lot lots of folks make that is called "hot pepper sauce", it is mild enough that no one is offended by it.
Treefarmer

[Paladin]

Time to add another picture of harvest from the garden:
002.JPG
These 6-quart jars are filled with sliced red and yellow sweet banana peppers, a few slices of Mammoth jalapeño and several sliced-up onions. The jars are then filled with boiling hot mixture of 2:1 vinegar and sugar liquid and then sealed with a lid and band. If all goes right a little later you will hear the lids (seals) click as they draw a vacuum on the jar and they are ready for the pantry. The liquid is good on all sorts of greens, collards, mustard, turnips, etc. Also goes good poured over a taco salad. The peppers and onions are crisp and work as a condiment on hotdogs and burgers.
This stuff is not what a lot lots of folks make that is called "hot pepper sauce", it is mild enough that no one is offended by it.
Treefarmer

It looks delicious, Phil!

Ray

[Dullest_knife]

Alright, here's a couple of shots to get us back on track...both from last year's harvest, but fitting nonetheless.....

pepps 005.jpg
pepps 006.jpg

I know the yellow is an imperial, what's the red?

[Paladin]

Alright, here's a couple of shots to get us back on track...both from last year's harvest, but fitting nonetheless.....

pepps 005.jpg
pepps 006.jpg

I know the yellow is an imperial, what's the red?

That post is just over 10 years old.

Ray

[Dullest_knife]

Alright, here's a couple of shots to get us back on track...both from last year's harvest, but fitting nonetheless.....

pepps 005.jpg
pepps 006.jpg

I know the yellow is an imperial, what's the red?

That post is just over 10 years old.

Ray

Oops

[bighomer]

The bosses carrot crop. She figures the seed wuz in with her pepper or mater seeds.

[bighomer]

Most everyone I talked to around here had a bumper crop this year, dang deer have been a nuisance but all in all a very good harvest.

[tvic]

Yea, we have a small, raised bed garden in the backyard - tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers - went away for a week, and the deer got into it - even ate a lot of our flowers!

The garden is really my wife’s. I showed her all your great photos. She’s jealous! '

[Dan In MI]

Nice harvest and incredibly sweet Opinel, Homer!