Our Subsistence Pattern

The weather has been surprisingly nice this past couple weeks, perhaps we will have an extended summer after all. Our potatoes have been harvested and we are quite content with this year's crop. Diversity in the potato patch, seemingly, once again played an important role. Some of the varieties that did great last year not so much this year and vice versa but in the end we were provided another fine harvest.

A fellow gardener talked about a method of planting potatoes that did not involve any hilling. I happily followed suit, planting our potatoes in a similar manner by digging them in deeply atop loose soil in an effort to avoid having to hill the dirt around them as they grew. While the amount harvested was not dramatically different I did notice that for the first time ever we had absolutely no issues with the scab that so often affects our purples and blues. This was perhaps due to the fact that the potatoes received a more adequate water supply, the rows were not nearly as mounded and less water was wasted due to runoff.

Speaking of scab, because we use our own potatoes for seed I am always on the lookout for any buildup of viruses and diseases related to this endeavour...so far so good and we have been doing this for quite a few years now. I am very careful to rotate our potato crop and only select the very best looking spuds for re-seeding purposes. I would imagine that people of old, from the Indians of South America to the settlers of North America, saved their own seed potatoes in a similar manner.

Actually, besides our russet varieties and Yukon Gold that never do that great (but I like the way they taste) the only potatoes that performed poorly were the two new "purchased" varieties that we tried this season. Red Viking and Shepody were both nice looking potatoes but only provided a few spuds per plant.

The potatoes in boxes will be used to plant next year's crop.

Potatoes are pulled in late September early October before it gets too cold and rainy out. Each row has a stake at the beginning with a bunch of tags attached to it with the varieties labeled in the order planted, this way I can keep track of all the different types. For the most part I know what everything is but I do tend to get the red potatoes mixed up in my head sometimes so the tags are of great benefit. Once dug we separate some of the nicest ones to be used for next year's seed. The rest are laid out on a tarp in the root cellar where they will remain until needed and if I am diligent in keeping any spring sprouts cut back they will remain edible and of good quality for a very long time. Below I have included pictures of a few of the many varieties we grew this year.

Some of the purple Peruvians were quite large this year.

This picture depicts two plants worth of Shepody, nice potatoes but not very numerous.

La Ratte has performed well for us the past two years.

Huckleberry is my wife's favorite potato, they are pink inside.

Russian Banana is one of the first "unusual" varieties I ever grew.

We have been growing this variety and saving seed for so long that I call them Mike's purple just to keep them separated from the other purple varieties I grow.

Anna Cheeka Ozette was originally brought from Peru in the 1700's by Spanish explorers to the Makah Indians at Neah Bay on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, where they still grow them today.

Yellow Finn is a nice producer that we have only been growing for a couple years now, they are yellow inside.

Austrian Crescent is another fine fingerling.

French Fingerling, one of my all around favorites.

"O Creator! Thou who givest life to all things and hast made men that they may live, and multiply. Multiply also the fruits of the earth, the potatoes and other food that thou hast made, that men may not suffer from hunger and misery." - Inca Prayer

The vast majority of this year's tomatoes stubbornly refused to ripen on the vine. I coaxed and pleaded with them, all to no avail. Their fate was set in stone when spring declined her initial invitation and showed up late for the party. If I could have tossed a lasso around the sun and pulled it closer to our garden perhaps that would have helped...but alas I have no such magic.

So, with the rainy cool weather pushing the last of summer aside we made the decision to pick all but our cherry tomatoes rather than risk the possibility of dampness or even frost stealing away our crop in the next couple of days. Most, if not all, of these tomatoes were fully formed and should slowly ripen inside over the next few weeks. We've had to pick our tomatoes green many times in years past but never this many. I am happy though as I was somewhat concerned for a while that we would not even see the fruits fully develop this year.

All the tomatoes were removed from the buckets, wiped clean of water (we picked them in the rain) and placed in cardboard boxes on our porch. We will bring them into the house a few boxes at a time to help speed up the ripening process and slowly convert them into salsa, sauce, and such.

I believe this box contains a few German Strawberry, Kellog's Breakfast, and (hybrid) Margherita's. They all have such a pretty green hue to them don't you think.:)

Yesterday I picked sweet (green) peppers from all but the potted pepper plants which were brought back into the greenhouse, I am hoping that they will ripen up a bit more. We will probably pull the remaining hot pepper plants and hang them upside down, this often helps them to finish ripening and hopefully "heat" up a bit as most are lacking in that department.

My hots aren't hot and the Paprika has no color.:(

While our popping corn is still outside trying to finish forming we were able to harvest our Painted Mountain and Blue Jade corn. We didn't spare much space for corn in the garden this year as there is still an abundance left over from the previous season. Once the kernels have shriveled enough to be removed from the cob they will be put on a screen in front of our wood or pellet stove to finish hardening because they have a propensity to become moldy if they are not cured properly in a warm dry environment. We do the same with our sunflower seeds. All of our corn is dried, stored in gallon jars, and will be ground into cornmeal as needed.

I love the color variance that we get with these varieties of corn.

And then there is the squash. A dismal harvest, perhaps our worst ever. I left many squashes outside on the vine to finish growing but with this cold rainy weather I hold little hope for them unless a couple more weeks of warm dry weather shows itself. Thank goodness for large hubbards, sugar pie pumkins, and gold nuggets. All three of which struggled mightily but at least gave us a few mature specimens to be used sparingly throughout the winter.

Normally at this time of year the vines have begun to die back and the rind has hardened to the point that it can no longer be easily pierced by a thumbnail. I leave a couple inches of stem on the squash as they perspire through their stems, any without may begin to rot. Those that lack stems or have soft spots are always used first and are usually the ones we steam and freeze to be used as soup or in mashed squash dishes. Unblemished squash is allowed to cure on our porch for a couple weeks or until the temperature drops below 50° at which point it is brought inside and kept cool and dry, right around 50-65°

All of that said, I am very excited to harvest our root veggies as I think they will be our summer's shining star. We hope to begin harvesting beets, carrots, potatoes, and parsnips as soon as we are afforded a couple of dry days in which to work.

Spring came, summer went, fall and winter are quickly approaching. The change in seasons finds us scurrying to procure all that we can from the gardens. Timing is key. If we wait too long the cold and wet will take its toll, too soon and the produce will not store well.

Recently we pulled most of our storage onions as a few days of wet weather is soon to be upon us and with the cooler nights I don't want them to succumb to rot. They were close to being ready, not as close as I would have liked under better conditions but they should cure up good enough nonetheless. While not as big as they could have been given a longer gardening year they were not too bad, not bad at all. I planted Borettana, Juane Paille de Vertus, and my favorite Yellow of Parma. All of the mentioned varieties grow well from seed and store for a long time for us...although I did struggle to get our Borettana's to germinate properly this spring. Anyway, once pulled I laid the onions out on our porch -

and patio to finish drying before removing the stalks about an inch from the bulb.

In a normal year I would have waited to pull these Yellow of Parma↓ until after the green stalks had withered away and then laid them out on the porch to cure for a few weeks before putting them in airy baskets for storage in a cool dry area...our basement works good for this.

We also had a fairly good garlic harvest this season. Again, the cloves were a bit on the small side but numerous...bring forth the fidlyness.:) I had to replace quite a few this spring because they had rotted in the ground over winter as we had almost no snow for protection...a first for us, we normally have plenty of snow cover. The spring planted replacements were just as large as those garlics planted the previous fall so, in the end, other than the wasted garlic, it really made no difference.

These garlics are for eating and the ones with tags on them in the second picture will be replanted for next years crop ~ and so continues the cycle...

Yellow Transparent ↑ “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” ~ Martin Luther

Well it has been a long time coming but after planting some of our first 3-4 year old semi-dwarf apple trees a few years back we are just now finally reaping the rewards of our first real apple harvest. It will be so nice to use some of our very own apples rather than having to rely on foraging the wild forgotten orchards for them...although we will be doing that again this year too.

We started planting apple trees in 2007 and every year thereafter have added more trees to our collection, all told we now have 18 different varieties of the semi dwarf, of which four produced fruits for us this year, and many other standard varieties that I have grown from seed.

If I could go back in time the very first thing I would do before even thinking of starting any type of garden is to first focus on the planting of fruit & nut trees and berry bushes as many of them take so very long to begin producing.

Akane - An excellent tart flavored dessert and juice apple that is supposed to store well.

Spitzenburg (I think, we might have mixed this one up with our Wagener apple?) - Very sweet, and a good eating apple. Some of these were falling off the tree ripe so we picked a few ripe and unripe ones and I canned up some deliciously tart apple sauce...and Mrs. H baked a few turnovers of course.:)

Someday, as and old man, perhaps good fortune will find me sitting under one of these same trees drinking a pint of hard cider and fondly reminiscing about the adventures of my youth.:)

Our little grandson Hunter William, aka Jack, has recently found his way back down the beanstalk all the way from California where he spent the summer getting reacquainted with his "birth mom." Anyway, he is back just in time to help with the harvest, of course all he wants to do is go fishing, and fishing, and fishing...he likes fishing. He is also the missing link in our garden photos as a small boy makes everything in the garden look much bigger.

Surprisingly, after being on a slightly (much different) diet than what we eat around here, the lad was ready to get back on track with a wide variety of wholesome foods from the gardens without complaint. He returned to us with a craving for fresh eggs, anything berry, and will eat as many cucumbers as we give him....pickled or fresh. I was sure that we would have to retrain those taste buds of his. Welcome back little man.:)

While he is really of Polish, Japanese, English, and other descent, he seems to have acquired my jovial Irish nature.:)

Don't let those little green eyes fool you, what you're really looking at is 100% pure mischief.

Saying hello to the girls on the other side of the runner bean patch

While this gardening year was off to a very slow start we are quickly making up time heading toward the finish line. The above picture depicts one of our first (Janice Brown) daylilies sent to us from a friend in Virginia...they are beautiful.:)

Not only are some of our flowers "finally" starting to bloom but we have also been harvesting ample amounts of zucchini for a couple weeks now. This has also been a trial of patience for me. Of course, where there is one there is a dozen all ripening at the same time. I guess I know what we will be incorporating into every meal possible for the next month or so. I am very grateful though because we do love cooking with zucchini and I am glad that it is such a steady producer as we have been waiting a long time for them. Just the other morning I put on a pot of rice while we took the dog for a walk and upon returning threw together a nice stir fry full of garden veggies, including summer squash, for breakfast.

Our squash, planted in various locations, is coming along fairly well. Yesterday I noticed a few pumpkins, spaghetti, hubbard, and others of notable size. Not a lot of fruits yet, but I do see some. The papaya pear summer squash are also looking good even though they lost their shape many years ago, perhaps a sorted affair with a crookneck or, heaven forbid, a zucchini.

Sugar Pie pumpkin

My favorite golden nugget plants do not appear to have had any of the pollination issues that have been worrying me and are loading up with little ones. They are such a nice compact plant taking up no more room than a zucchini, early to fruit, and they store well too.

I am growing these two golden nugget plants separately from any other squash to assure that I retain pure seed.

The cucumbers have started to produce steadily and we have been canning them in small batches as they come on. I know that it is not considered safe according to the USDA but I would be very interested to hear from any rebels that can their pickles in the oven and what they think of that method especially from a pickle crunchiness standpoint. I am aware that refrigerator and lacto-fermented pickles hold their crunch but am curious about any methods that will allow me to have a longer term storage option.

Now here is an interesting blunder on my part. I thought it would be a neat trick to grow a few rattlesnake beans on the same fence as some of our tomatillos. My thoughts being that the beans would help tie the tomatillos to the fence, that aspect of it all seems to be working like a charm. Unfortunately, I also planted a few squash in the same area and miscalculated how much room our hubbards and pumpkins would consume, forgetting to diligently trail the vines in the other direction. So now I am faced with a few issues when it comes time to gather beans and tomatillos, both of which will be ready before the squash...oops, no room for me.:) Looks like I might even have to pick a couple squash off the barn roof this year.

We spent a day this past weekend alone in the mountains hiking to one of our favorite mountain lakes, we did not hear or see another soul all day other than the moose that we spooked...a perfect day. While the weather below was very warm the mountains remained cool and refreshing, perfect conditions for our puppy's first all day hike and he did great. What a wonderful little dog and terrific hiking companion he has turned out to be.

My wife and Rowdy taking turns peaking through our favorite holey tree.

Rowdy gazing around Snow Lake keeping an eye out for bears.:)

Lunch break, cheese sandwiches for everyone. Really, she even makes sandwiches for the dog...he loves our bread.

One of the many wild edible plants we came across while hiking was prunella or self-heal. A beautiful little plant with vibrant purple flowers, prunella is a perennial member of the mint family that has long been used in herbal medicine (note - some have white flowers). The root was supposedly used in a tea by Native Americans in ceremonies to help hone their senses before going hunting, perhaps it will help me to notice the bears before they notice us.

We dry this herb for tea and also eat the leaves fresh as often as we can in order to obtain the possible benefits of its reported anti-microbial, anti-viral, anti-oxidant, and immune system boosting properties. Once thought to be a gift from God the list of this herbs uses is incredibly extensive so we figure that it would be foolish of us not to make good use of it especially considering prunella grows wild all over our area and the entire plant is edible. I have been saving seeds and with any luck this herb will be a part of our garden next year. I would like nothing more than to blather on and on about prunella but I think I will leave it at that.

I'll leave you with a short snippet of our Huckleberry hound enjoying a healthy snack.