Harvest TIME!! YUM

We made it thru Spring planting, no drought or excessive heat and am now in the midst of Harvest time!  I am SOOo sooo thankful to have a garden to enjoy.  I don't know why we waiting so long to have one.  My hubby is an awesome farmer and the time and space was never 'right' until last year.  Along with our garden this year, we got more chickens, and some rabbits.  We lovingly call our corner of the small village we call home "The Higbee Acre Farm"..  We only have ONE acre you see, and Higbee is our street name. It just fits.  Along with our many eggs we get every day (we have 51 chickens total, we believe at least 4 are roosters) we have quite a variety in our garden.  I am trying to preserve and share as much of it before it goes to waste as possible.  We have a LOT of yellow summer squash this year.  Was surprised to find a spaghetti plant that grew from last years scraps and some pie pumpkins growing rouge in the corn.  Celery is amazing!!!  I dehydrate as much of it as I can and use it in everything.  Potatoes are not ready yet, but they are doing well, we also tried some sweet potatoes.  It's a first so we shall see how they turn out.  Tomatoes, peppers, swiss chard, beets, radishes, parsnips, onions, carrots, corn, watermelon, winter squash..  What am I forgetting?? We have quite a variety and everything has done very well.  Our cucumbers and zucchini both got a fungus and died for some reason.  So here are a few pictures and for all my friends new to the canning, here is a great website with tons of ideas and even some videos.  If you ever come across a Blue Ball Canning book..  GET IT.. it is an awesome book to have full of every food items and many ways to preserve it!
http://www.freshpreserving.com/home.aspx

Celery

Our youngest with her chicken friends

God's amazing eggs!  One farm many sizes

Canned 41 qts of green beans from our garden

The Higbee Acre Farm

Jam

Getting the garden planted this spring