Homestead happenings! Kinda Lengthy, you may need two cups of coffee.

 Hello all!  I haven't forgotten you.  It's just the time of year.  Things are picking up on our tiny homestead.  

The chickens are giving us about 8-12 eggs PER DAY.  We've actually already sold some, frozen some, and given some to family.  Not sure, yet, what we're going to do if one of the hens decides to go broody and sit on eggs.  We don't really need new chickens at the moment.

Finally!  We have Beets, Red Kale, Snow peas(yay), Spinach, and Turnips coming up in the garden.  I didn't think those seeds were ever going to sprout!  Still waiting on Lettuce.  A friend shared some of her cilantro plants (Thank you K!).  4 cilantro plants, and they are doing well after being moved.  

We've had crazy amounts of rain, but recently have had some dry spring like days and so I've been out in the yard playing!  Playing as in cleaning out beds, cleaning up the yard( if gets kind of a mess over the winter), and putting in the structures for the garden i.e. trellises, fencing, cages, etc.  One of the things I've put up is a wind tunnel.  I'm trying something different with my tomatoes.  From what I'm told, tomatoes don't like to get watered from the top.  I've dealt with blight for the past few years, so I'm thinking this might help.  It will protect the plants from the rain, but still allow them sunshine.  We'll see.  It does mean I will need to water them by hand.

As for my seedlings, I have broccoli, red cabbage, green cabbage, parsley, chamomile, lavender, and tomatoes coming up.  I started some of these, especially the tomatoes the last week of  DECEMBER!  Again, this is to, hopefully, help with a large harvest of tomatoes.  I'm hopeful having older tomatoes plants set out will enable them to produce a crop before heat, bugs, or blight can get them.  I would love to have enough tomatoes to can ALL of our tomato products for the year.  These are just a sampling of a few.

So my canning/ preserving wish list goes

1 Tomatoes:  you name it!

2 Red cabbage: Spiced red cabbage ( so good!)

3 Green cabbage- Sauerkraut,  Hubby loves Brats or sausage with kraut

4 Lavender- Essential oil

5 Parsley spice

6 Chamomile- Tea

7 Broccoli- freeze

8 Spinach- canning in small jars to add to soups, quiches, etc.

9 Beets- Beet Jelly (tastes like a fruit jelly)

10 Turnips- roasting

11 Snow peas-  Freeze what I don't eat standing in the garden lol

I also intend to plant:  Hot and mild peppers, Zucchini, Butternut, green beans, black beans, lima beans, black eye peas, corn.  I have strawberries, blueberries, and black berries that are perennial and I hope will produce well.  Well see.  My goal is to use every canning jar I own for putting the garden away.  While I would love to be able to grow everything we eat, that's just not possible where we live, but, as much as I can;  If we use it, I would like to produce it.  The more I grow the less I have to spend on Groceries at the store, the fresher it is, and the less it costs over all.  

As for spending less at the store, all the craziness going on these days, has strengthened my desire to support local small businesses.  Like with my garden, I can't get all of my groceries at small businesses, but I can get some.  With some creative thinking I can get more.  

We have a local farmers market/grow house about a mile and a half up from our home.  I've bought seedlings there in the past and they are convenient to grab a forgotten item, but they weren't as cheap as the big box stores.  I was in there the other day to grab a pound of carrots and had the idea.  I asked an employee if it was possible to buy more of an item and get a discount.  He said I could buy a case of carrots; 48lbs for $31.  That made the per pound price .65 which is actually good.  Now we do use a lot of carrots; with roasting and all, but 48 lbs.!  I pulled the trigger and ordered a case.  I took 26 lbs. and promptly put them in the fridge.  We used 3 lbs. that night with dinner, and I canned the last 19 lbs. for the second part of my experiment; would canning store bought fresh carrots save me over store bought canned carrots.  

From the 19 lbs. of carrots I got 26 pints of canned carrots.  Each pint holds 8 oz. of carrots.  FYI one 15 oz. can at the store holds 7oz of carrots.   The canned carrots at Aldi cost .55 a can I believe.  I looked at Kroger and Walmart and it's way more.  These that I canned cost me .48 a jar.  Had I needed to count the price of the lid, it would have been .60.  In this case I didn't have to count the cost of the lid. Had I needed to count the cost of the lid, I think I still would consider this for these reasons:

1.  Less trash.  Because everything is in reusable jars, means fewer trash bags.  

2.  Better quality product.

3.  More volume of food in each jar compared to the store bought canned

4.  One thing I did notice during the pandemic buying earlier last year was that canned food was in limited supply, while fresh wasn't and seemed to be priced well.  Part of that was and still is a tin/aluminum shortage, in addition to the panic end of the world "I used to tease people who stocked up until I needed to stock up" buying.  By knowing I can buy fresh and can it myself at a price comparable to canned, I need not compete with others buying canned food.  

5.  I don't or won't need a can opener, or deal with a pop top.

I'm sure there are other reasons.  As I picked up my 48 lb. case of carrots, I asked the owner if it's possible to do this with other items as well like potatoes, onions, etc.  He said it should be possible on just about everything they sell.  Now I can't can carrots every time I need to replenish my fresh carrots supply, but I had the idea to go in with some friends of mine, to buy in bulk from a local business and each pay the per pound price for just what they want/need.  That way we each can help a small business during this time, stay in budget, and get what we need.  So Guuuuuuuurls!  What do you think?