This summer was NOT a busy summer in the garden, but I will get to that later. We did however plant a couple of things..... cabbage and potatoes (we are good irish gardeners!). They both made a great crop this year and we have a lot of goodies from them.
KRAUT:
Cabbage in full bloom (and amazingly no bugs this year!)
The girls helped pick, cut and wash the cabbage. Such hard workers!
Look how pretty!
Chopping the cabbage to make kraut.
Little Bit helps pour the canning salt and press the cabbage down into the bucket. (Our "recipe" is a layer of cabbage, a layer of canning salt, press, repeat. When bucket is 3/4 full, fill with water. Cover with cheese cloth and lid with pressure release value. Let sit for 4 to 6 weeks (depending on the temp), adding water and scraping top layer as needed. When finished fermenting, scrap top inch off and discard. Use remaining to fill pint or quart jars and process.)
POTATOES:
Potatoes looking all green and beautiful! Interesting fact about potatoes...they are not ready to dig up until the nice pretty green leaves die and turn brown. So these spuds still have a few weeks to go.
After digging up all the potatoes, the girls helped the woodsman collect all the spuds into a 50 gal drum. We had enough potatoes to fill the drum about half full. That's a lot of spuds!!!
Look I was there too! ;)
We collected a great bounty from out cabbage and potatoes this year. I managed to make around 30 pints of kraut and although we lost some potatoes to rot, I think we will have enough to make it through the winter.
