Canadian Acres
Farming in the North
Our 2014 Harvest
As the days grow colder and more of the leaves fall to the ground, I find myself thankful for the year we’ve had. Also, thankful for Canadian Thanksgiving and the fact that I now get to celebrate two Thanksgivings. Sweet!
This weekend we spent time with family sharing the bounty of the agriculture season in the Peace Valley, made some new friends, laughed, drank wine & whiskey and it turns out, Canada is starting to feel a little more like home. Clay and I have been working our tail feathers off trying to get some projects finished up before the snow comes, and throughout it all, I’ve been squirreling away our harvest slowly but surely. I’m amazed at how much we gathered this year without even having a legitimate garden. Thank goodness for foraging on the farm, a small hugelkultur bed and some very generous neighbors, family and friends.
It all began with the purchase of some month old chickens and the onset of saskatoon season. It took some time for the chickens to grow, but saskatoon season was ridiculously bountiful this year. Starting in July, we started to notice the small purple and red berries ripen and the amount of black bear sightings grow. I’ve never had a fresh saskatoon and didn’t know much about them, but wowza… we have a gold mine on the peace valley hills of our farm. There was much fun to be had picking them, and had many a friend offer to help with the labor – for payment in fresh berries of course. Happy to oblige. I successfully put up 60 lbs of saskatoons in the freezer, made 7 pints of jam and 3 liters of cordial. I usually make my cordial with Everclear, but apparently BC doesn’t sell the amazing 90 proof alcohol… lame. Next year will warrant a trip to Alberta I suppose. This year will have to settle for vodka.
After saskatoon season died down, it was time for the chokecherries to ripen. I’ve also never had experience with chokecherries and was glad for insightful friends to point out our bushes. My mom and dad came for a visit during chokecherry season and I enjoyed picking and exploring with my mom, who happens to love chokecherry syrup. 20 pounds of chokecherries went to the deep freeze.
Some family went on vacation and gave us access to their raspberry bushes, which we gladly filled our pails. We picked enough for 7 pints of jam and 3 liters of cordial.
I planted two heirloom tomoatoe plants, 2 zuchinin plants and 1 sugar pie pumpkin vine in my small hugelkutlur bed on the south side of our house. It proved to be a powerhouse producer and gave us fresh zucchini for 2 months. With the onset of a very early snow (September 7) I pulled the crop into the house and came out with 30 lbs of green heirloom tomatoes and 3 sugar pie pumpkins. Not too shabby, especially for my first attempt at tomatoes.
I waited for the tomatoes to ripen and ate them fresh plus roasted 20 pounds with garlic, herbs and olive oil – they too ended their journey in my freezer. Recipe found here.
Visiting the local farmers market and fruit stand, I canned 10 quarts of dill pickles and 10 quarts of honey vanilla peaches with rosemary. I picked up 3 whole wild sockeye salmon and turned them into my famous jalapeno teriyaki smoked salmon. It felt good to butcher a salmon again and pull out the smoker. A little piece of home.
The chickens started to lay eggs and I ended up with 5 laying hens and 8 roosters. The ladies started laying the first week of August and with 10 weeks of laying time behind us, we’ve gathered almost 20 dozen eggs. 5 of the roosters were butchered and thrown into the freezer.
As fall settled on the Peace River, crab apples came into season and my neighbors were having trouble with bears ruining their crab apple trees. I graciously offered to help harvest to help lighten the load. My friend Shellie and I spent a brisk day picking apples, drinking tea and watching Sandhill cranes settle in the fields near by. I froze 40 pounds of crab apples when all was said and done and I was quickly running out of space in the my freezer.
Whew… well, so far that’s it.
Last week brought two trips to the U-brew in town and with the help of some lovely ladies I’m fortunate to call my friends, we made a batch of chokecherry wine, saskatoon wine and two batches of crab apple wine. It should leave me with 15 bottles each of saskatoon and chokecherry wine and 30 bottles of crab apple wine. Happy girl!
The only things left to do are finish roasting more tomatoes acquired from our lovely crab apple neighbors, butcher 10 more chickens and hopefully harvest both an elk and a white tail deer (my favorite). We still have some time.
Good lord, no wonder I’m tired and ready for winter 🙂 Although, the work is never done and it will all just turn into cold work. But at least at the end of the day I can sit down, relax and enjoy a glass of harvest wine. I think we may be getting the hang of this homesteading thing…
Happy Harvest to you!
~Katy
2014 Harvest List:
- 20 lbs frozen saskatoons
- 7 pints saskatoon jam
- 3 liters saskatoon cordial
- 15 bottles of saskatoon wine
- 7 pints raspberry jam
- 3 liters of raspberry cordial
- 15 bottles chokecherry wine
- 10 lbs frozen chokecherries
- 20 dozen farm fresh eggs
- 20 lbs of Cherokee purple roasted heirloom tomoatoes
- 3 sugar pie pumpkins
- Loads of fresh zucchini
- 10 qts dill pickles
- 10 qts honey vanilla peaches with rosemary
- 20 packages jalapeno teriyaki smoked salmon
- 5 chicken bodies
- 30 bottles crab apple wine
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