List from mid 1950s

A piece of ephemera from my collection that hasn't a thing to do with the list below. Just something I wanted to share.

This list ( and people seem to make them at this time of year ) is from the mid 1950s. It came into my life from my second cousin's family folder. It is a list accomplished by my paternal Great Aunt. A list of foodstuffs that she preserved to feed herself and the six children still living at home.

4 and 1/2 bushels of sweet potatoes
1 and 1/2 bushels of white potatoes
Lots of dry peas and lima beans
85 quarts peaches
15 quarts pickled peaches
69 quarts black berries
70 quarts green beans
80 quarts tomatoes
25 quarts vegetable soup
55 quarts apples to bake
18 quarts apples for pies
35 quarts beet pickles
48 quarts cucumber pickles
10 quarts mixed pickles
12 pints apple jelly
32 pints pear preserves
10 pints peach preserves
5 pints plum jelly
14 pints blackberry jelly
18 pints blackberry jam
175 pounds vegetables in the freezer at the Food Locker in town ( lima beans,3 kinds of peas, okra, cut corn and several pounds of goat meat)

I have not compiled my list of preserved foodstuffs for the year of 2011 yet. Am still cooking fruit jams from this year's crops. Numbers are in the journal and soon I shall share.

Vegetable gardening adventures

Okay, dear reader, I am going to be very brave and show you this image of my "vegetable garden". This is what happens when an art project deadline looms front and center for the entire month of June and I am unable to even glance at the garden. June , here in Platte County, MO, USA was cool and cloudy. Seems this is perfect conditions for vicious farm weeds to prosper. Rhett brought me a few loads of good dirt from down by the barn last fall and this was working into the existing soil from last year's garden. Sleeping soundly in this dirt were the seeds of these evil weeds. So, July came and "Mr. Hopewell" was delivered to his new home at the museum. I was free to dig in the dirt and see what was left vegetable-wise in the so called garden. A few hours a day were spent on the end of a shovel digging patches of weeds and their roots from my garden. Little by little, I was able to uncover feeble rows of vegies. Here you see Lacinato, and if you squint and look carefully to the left, there are carrot fronds sticking up amongst the weeds. To the right are lima beans ( which I am nursing now into new life). Here and there across the garden are stalks of amaranth. Thankfully. It came up volunteer from the row of three varieties that I grew ( successfully, I might add ! ) last year. Amaranth is SO good for you and we have been able to eat the greens all summer. I jump them , in the Italian fashion and saute then in olive oil with garlic and pinch of chipotle ( from Chimayo, NM). Have been freezing the jumped amaranth also for ribollita this winter. Oh, forgot to mention that the garden is 30 feet x 30 feet this year. I have about ten more hours of digging weeds to uncover the entire garden. Carrots survived just fine, all six varieties. Lacinato can be coaxed into a fall crop to freeze for ribollita also.
Rhett weed eated ( not a real word ) our watermelon crop. Cute isn't it. He also managed to chop up the Black-eyed Susan's and lily of the valley and ferns. Then he tells me that he lost his glasses whilst weed eating. Hmmm.
This is our first venture raising potatoes. Two rows of La Ratte fingerlings. Purchased from www.seedsavers.org .

Quite confusing for a first time potato farmer. From dried up plants come over a bushel of tubers such as these. And delicious, I must say. Next year, more rows of other varieties.

Back to digging weeds now. Stay tuned.