Great Year for the Garden

I love going out to my garden to get lunch, or breakfast in this case. We have an ever expanding garden and orchard to provide most of our own food. Besides all the usual veges including a beautiful asparagus bed, we have apple, pear and plum trees, (we did have a peach tree but that suffered death by goat last year when they organized a coordinated prison break!), raspberries, currants, blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries, elderberries, strawberries, and rhubarb. We get milk and meat from the goats, eggs and meat from the chickens and ducks, meat from pigs, veges and fruit from the gardens. The only thing we don't raise ourselves is beef but buy that locally from a friend who pasture raises Herefords. The animals are also our land management crew. As we've pushed back the woods to reclaim open pasture the goats clear brush and keep the land clear, pigs help loosen and dig up stumps. We did have sheep a while back but neither of us particularly likes lamb meat, and I don't do anything with the wool, so we decided that sheep are way too dumb to really enjoy other than being a source of amusement when they run into fences etc.

This has been a bumper crop year for everything. We've had a wonderful combination of heat and rainfall, which has served to make everything lush and productive. Since we have such a short growing season here in northern NH it's wonderful to have everything produce so much in such a short time. Now to can, freeze, dehydrate, juice, pickle, store, etc., it all.

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