Sunday, October 31, 2010

Our visit to a local cranberry bog

 This is a photo of the bog we got our cranberries from.  It belongs to Marci and Dave Murray.  They have been so generous in showing us their bogs and giving us some really great cranberries!  Thanks Dave and Marci!
 This is Dave and Chad loading the truck with cranberries from the bog.  There is a ladder they go up and during that time most of the leaves and debris fall back down.  Then they are pumped out and they make compost from them.  It is used to put back into the bogs to feed the plants.
 Ed and the girls looking at the cranberries.
 These photos don't show what a pretty sight this is.  It is so much brighter and pretty in person!
 Two 5 gallon buckets of cranberries they dipped out of the truck for us!  They are safely in the freezer now.  I made some juice from them too.  Soooo good!
 In this photo the truck had left to take the cranberries to the plant.
 This is a bog that hadn't been harvested yet.  You can't see the tons of berries in this photo.  Trust me they are there!
 Marci was kind enough to take this photo of us.  It was a beautiful day!
 Here is a photo of the machine that thrashes the plants and the berries float to the top of the water.  From there they use floating booms to corral them and bring them to the edge where they run them up into the truck.
 When we were leaving, we met the truck coming back from the plant going back to the bog for another load.
 Close up of the berries.
 And here they are all washed and pretty looking in my kitchen!
This bowl is huge.  I know it doesn't look like that in the photos, but it is holding one bucket full of cranberries!

Another day we went back to the bog and Marci let us pick from her dry baby bog.  It is where they grow replacement plants for another bog.  They don't flood it, so they have to be picked by hand.  That day we got another bucket full!  I have been so happy to have fresh cranberries!  Thanks again Marci and Dave!

Monday, October 25, 2010

The continuing harvest




These photos were taken on September 29th.  I have since processed them.  Some are pickled, some are canned, some are in the freezer.

 Some of our carrot harvest.  I had actually forgotten I planted this mix of colored carrots.  What a surprise to dig them up!  Aren't they so pretty?

 They were very tasty too!  The strange thing about eating a white carrot was I kept expecting them to taste like parsnips, but they don't.  They taste just like a sweet carrot.
Nice looking corn.  We didn't grow this but our neighbor did and gave us this batch.  It was tasty!
These photos were taken today in my kitchen.  The jars are full of tomatoes.  The one bowl is full of tomatillas that were a freebie in my garden.  They had seeded themselves last year.  I will be making some salsa verde with them.
 These are some sweet banana peppers and the hot peppers I have no idea what they are.  I planted a hot pepper mix.
 Jalapeno and hot red cherry peppers.  So pretty together!
 Some of the banana peppers..........
 Bell peppers, Anaheim, pablano and more banana peppers.
 This is one five gallon bucket of beets, I have a big box of them out in the shop waiting on me.  They will be pickled beets soon in a jar on my pantry shelf.


Stay tuned for a visit to a cranberry bog.

October updates

Time flies when you are busy!  Since the last post in September, we have been very busy.  Sally turned 8 years old.  I am going to share some photos of her party.  We actually had it outdoors this year.  Usually it is raining already on October 3rd.  This year we had a dry Fall.  That was so good as it allowed our garden to finish producing.  We had a late start this year so we needed this extra time to let it grow.  Thank you Lord for a bountiful harvest!

 This is a Swinson family tradition.  The birthday person gets the first bite of cake.
 This is how she looked after her first bite!
 The cake before the first bite.
 Sally, behind her is Jadeyn and behind her is little Samantha.
 This is Jadeyn, Sally, Gabriel, and Audrey.
From left to right, Gabriel, Sally, Adam, Josie, Jadeyn, and Lily.  Grandma is in the background. 
These are the birthday girl photos.  We had the party in the Gazebo.  She had a pinata along with the pretty pink cake!

Stay tuned for more photos of the harvest!