Only a Mama knows: September Homesteading

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

September Homesteading

With our garden winding down and our fruit trees all ready to be picked, it's the perfect time to do a bit of homesteading.

Our apricot tree was incredibly full this year. I managed to pick 5 gallon size bags to give away to friends, and still had plenty for us to slice and dehydrate for snacking, as well as strawberry apricot jam, and straight apricot jam.

Our two Japanese plum trees were also super fruitful this year, so again, I gave about 3 gallon size bags away, and we used the rest to make strawberry plum jam.

I picked all the apples off our one little apple tree and made them into applesauce because they were pretty tart. I hope that'll change as the tree matures, but I don't know anything about apple trees, lol, as with most things, we learn as we go and kinda just wing it.

We were gifted a huge box of peaches from a friend, so we dehydrated a bunch for snacking, and canned the rest.

As far as the garden goes, it's been winding down the past few weeks. By now we've picked all our corn, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and green beans and put those beds to rest. We'll get a few more strawberries here or there. We are giving our squash and pumpkins another few weeks before we'll pick those. And once that's done, the garden will once again be quiet until next Spring.

A while ago I decided, on the days I felt well enough, that I would do a bit of soaping so that I would be able to participate in the Farmers Market Holiday Bazaar coming up in December. I know I said I'd take the year off from soaping, but I really missed it, and I really want to be able to do the Bazaar. So the first week of September I got to soaping. By myself I can get about 3 loaves done, but when Sam is home from work, and with his help, we can get anywhere from 5-7 loaves done at a time. I'm really excited to be pumping out soap and hope to get my stock up to where I need it to be so I can announce I'll be at the Bazaar!