Spring planting is here and planting for summer will be here before you know it. We have a big garden of approximately 5000 square feet and we grow what our family will eat every year from that garden. Many times we grow more than we can eat and so we give a lot away to others and bring some to a food pantry locally.
So with winter coming to an end soon, we take a look at what we have left over that we either need to share or give some away. It also helps us plan on how much to plant for this next year. I am a BIG proponent of growing more than you need simply because every year certain plants may fail and you always want your crops that you count on to come through for you. If you grow 10 tomato plants and 5 are struck by disease or a horn worm attack, you just lost half your crop. But if you grow 60 tomato plants and you lose 5, then its not so bad. Make sense?
So here is what we have left laying around.
We still have a lot of squash. We harvested a mountain of it and now we going to be giving a lot of it away at a local food pantry next week. They are quite decorative in some places around the house. These have been a prolific producer each year for us and we now sell the seeds on our website.
The picture is dark because its taken back in our pantry that has little lighting. But you can see just how many we have left. We are going to be giving many of these away next week to a local food pantry.
We have a bunch of garlic left over. We are just now getting to our decorative display in the kitchen and using them. We harvested a LOT of garlic last year. We also used a lot. We love our garlic.
More squash that Jaimie has decoratively laying around the kitchen. Last year was just a huge year for squash and they just produced so well for us. The cutting board those are sitting on is from a white oak tree that we cut down on the homestead and milled on the saw mill.
We don't have many beans left. We eat a lot of beans and Jaimie cans a lot of these every year. Canning beans are definitely on the grow list this year.
We still have a lot of spicy salsa left over right now. Usually about now we are getting really low. But we kinda changed over to a lower carb diet and so I'm eating less chips and salsa. But we are still using the salsa in taco salads every week among other meals.
And finally we still have some sweet potatoes left over. We are going to be eating most of these and whatever we don't eat will be used for growing this summer's slips for the garden. I love our sweet potatoes!
What do you have left from your garden last year? Are you about out of food or do you still have a lot?
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Do you ever get tired of eating the same thing over and over again. Last year, our zucchini plant produced so much, and I didn’t really know how to store them, so we tried eating them up as they were being harvested. Oh man, was I sick of zucchini by the end of it!
I saw some of the pins Jaimie has been saving on Pinterest. How are you liking the new recipes?
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She is always trying new recipes. We really like eating Zucchini like this.
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I should really get myself that kitchen gizmo. Thanks for the tip!
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I never get tired of sweet potatoes! Looks good in the pantry!
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Hello An American Homestead: We are getting cabin fever here and cant wait to get out in the garden. We have mostly Beans and Carrots left from last year, but we usually have a couple years ahead on those. Very hard for us to plant more plants than needed because of limited space. We will be clearing more land this summer for a much larger garden, hopefully we will soon be able to open a market garden and generate some income from the homestead. Good luck with your garden this season.
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Thanks for the comment! Yeah we clear more land almost every year for additional building ideas that can help generate income. Just cleared a field this winter for growing sun chokes. I'd like to be able to sell those online. Very easy to grow.
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This past year we used up a lot from our food storage because I was so sick and eating from our storage was a better choice than fast foods so this year I need to be replacing a bunch of stuff.
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Yep, grow what you eat! :)
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Since I'm starting over at a new property, I haven't built up much of a garden yet. I do a no-till, Ruth Stout type garden, so this year I will be adding lots of cow manure from the pasture across the way and piling it up with hay to start working on building up the soil. I'll still be planting plenty of stuff, but not expecting a huge harvest this year.
It's just me, so I can only do so much and getting my living situation (currently in a tent) upgraded and being prepared for winter is #1 on the list this year :)
Thanks for sharing!
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Great stuff! Enjoying some of your posts. You are really going for it!
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I'm a bit jealous on all the quality food. It's much harder here to grow but im getting there.
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Never stop trying. Just find what works best in your area.
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This year I still have sweet potatoes, garlic, dehydrated and frozen tomatoes and peppers. It was a bad year for squash and cucumbers so none saved and no pickles!!
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Man, wish I could share some of my squash with you!
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Aww me too! Fingers crossed for a better squash season here haha!
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Hi. We are at moment planing out our garden and we are searching for some gardeners / homesteaders who could give us some advice.It would be nice if you took a look at our plan and give us your thoughts. It would mean a lot for us.
SILIŅI. I need gardeners advice. Planing out our territory.
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Wow, that's some good planning there. Five beautiful plots there. @ironshield
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Well that looks like you got a good start. Try and find somewhere to buy manure and start putting it on those areas. Rabbit manure is best if you can find it. Just don't use chicken manure unless its aged a year first.
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Our garden isn't ready to feed our family yet. Every year we produce more though, so if we keep it up, we'll get there eventually. Unless our family keeps expanding faster than our garden! @ironshield
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I grew squash one year...zucchini..
OMG!
Zucchkinalypse!!!!
it was everywhere..everywhere..
and the
OKRA!
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Ooooo, we likes okra. @ironshield
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FRIED
fried okra..
not Boiled.
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Boiled okra mush? Ugh. No, we're talking roasted okra with garlic and parmesan cheese. Never tried it fried, it bet it's good. @ironshield
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I eat mine raw!
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double ewwwww.
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I've only had one good year of Okra so far. Going to try again this year.
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The year I am spoken of was GOOD.
had to pick twice day..sometimes three.
or the pods got too big and tough.
ITCHY!
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Hahaha! I know what you mean!
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We have way too many jars of green beans and relish on the shelf. I'm running out of ways to serve green beans! Like you we still have plenty of garlic. I am hoping to start selling our organic garlic at the farmers markets this fall if our crop grows well.
Sadly, we are out of potatoes and down the the last squash :(
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We feed the homeless a hot neal every month, and it is hard to get them to eat greenbeans. We added garlic, it helped, we stirfried them, helped some. But Last month we added white sauce and mushrooms, and they came back for more. We don't serve green beans every month, and it was one roaster out of ten, but try to use what is donated, and feed them Good food too. This is one of the everybody wins recipes, we will use again.
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My husband loves sauce and I had not thought of drowning them in it. It's worth a shot - thank you! I love that you are working hard to provide real food, and good meals. That's such an important thing for health and vitality. It really warms my heart to read that you are doing that! :)
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We have been feeding for about 3 years now. We started with about 60 homeless, and two servers, with one roaster of food. We fed 300 the last time, and have a dozen helping. We run ten roasters on generators to keep them hot. Served out about 50 gallons of hot food. They really did like those beans, LOL. We had sphaghetti with garlic bread, au gratin potatoes, Chili, Mac and cheese, these beans, Brocolli soup, and a Huge kitchen sink salad. They ate it all!
I just remembered at Thanksgiving, we made green bean casserole, and they ate that very well.
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good cooking food post thanks for shearing
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it's great I'm also learning to grow vegetables and it's fun to harvest vegetables from my own plant
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interesting kitchen decor. this can add my idea in arranging the kitchen room. thank you very much for your post pliers very useful.
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MMMM That Spicy Salsa Looks Good! So Does That Zucchini! Have You Ever Thought About Growing OKRA??
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That's amazing job done and we don't have much space but my parents do gardening and i help them occasionally in watering of plants and i like your idea of donation of your crops in my opinion most of people always store left over and then it becomes perish, but you have decided to give away that will help other people inturn so keep growing effective farming and keepup the helping work. Thanks for sharing and wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
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I always tell people to plant the seeds of the stuff I give them. The squash is a great example!
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Nice to hear that. 🙂
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I do inventory in early June, just before strawberries come in. I still have a few potatoes, lots of garlic, and many jars of pickles, and dehydrated things. Most of our food is in the freezers. I know we will run out of beef long before November due to a mix-up. Because of that we will probably run out of pork before October as it will take up the slack. The chicken should make it to Labor Day when the first freezer camp happens. Most of the vegs and fruits should hold out to their respective next harvests. But I won't know for sure until inventory in June.
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We have dried herbs, most notably basil, and chili oil from the zillion tabascos and chili petins we grew--and not a lot else! We did have tomatos fresh thru November!
We eat a LOT of salsa tho...on tacos, chips, everything.
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You have a nice supply of food.
We have just finished eating our last squash and garlic!
Waiting for the next spring!
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My homestead is much more modest than yours, this is my first year growing vegetables! Here in Spain potatoes don't grow very well so it's lovely to see your backup of sweet potatoes. I can't believe how much you still have left from last season!! Lucky. That salsa looks tasty too.
Great post :D
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Okay, I have a silly question for you. We want to expand our garden this year and grow sweet potatoes. Never had them in the garden before so how do you get your slips (for this newbie)?
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The way I did it last year was to use an old sweet potato from the store, let it sprout, pop the slip off at the base, and put it in water just a few centimeters deep. Wait for it to put out some roots, and then plant it. I also tried planting the slip (that's the sprouted part by the way) directly in the soil when it was warm enough. We got a few more potatoes from the slips in water than we did from direct planting, but we also were able to start those slips indoors when it was still cold outside.
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Great information! Thank you for sharing this. I can't wait to get some growing in the garden.
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No problem! It was actually pretty fun to experiment with, and I found that my sweet potatoes tasted so much better than store bought. Some of them were huge, too! I had one that was nearly the size of an infant's head!
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Wow! That is huge! I will be happy with anything I can grow.
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They're surprisingly easy to grow! I literally planted them along a fence in a low-traffic area and left them alone. When the leaves yellowed, I dug them up and kind of cured them on newspaper in a bathroom. They turned out great! I wish you good luck with them!
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I am so looking forward to this! The slips have already started to sprout so it won't be long!
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I had never planted sweet potatoes in my life, until... one year I discovered a "store-bought" sweet potato in the back of my cabinet, growing sprouts all over. Since I had an empty raised bed, I just buried it in there and left it all summer to enjoy the spreading greenery in the garden. In the fall when the vines started dying back, I dug up the flower bed and to my surprise, ended up with a laundry basket full of sweet potatoes of all sizes!
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