Broccoli – broccoli started it off this year with me in totally freezing 5 gallon bags of broccoli. I planted 18 broccoli heads this year and once we couldn’t keep up with eating them fresh, we froze. On 6- -21 we froze 4 gallons and then 7-17-21 I got around to freezing a bag of second head. This will be nice to not have to buy any broccoli in the winter until it is used up.

Beans – 77 quarts

What a year for Beans. We did plant 6 rows which was a LOT, and they produced SO well. We had 40 gallon buckets FULL and we didnt even use everything they produced. I did use a lot of the leftover ones for seeds for next year. The pole beans produced SO well and they were just massive. Canning beans takes forever but thankfully one saturday when i was tryng to get all the beans canned my MIL came over with her two canners and helped get them all in so doing 21 jars at a time made it go a LOT faster. We had so many cleaned but were running out of jars so we gave away those to the Vander Molens.

baby food – We had SO many beans coming out our ears that I made green bean baby food for Betsey. It was the first time i had every made green beans and it came out really well. the only thing was just it was stringier than the baby food you would buy at the store but i just pick those out. She wasn’t a baby food gal like Wyatt was though

Apples – Applesauce – Anna and Katie came over and we did batches one in the end of July and one at the beginging of September. I also did a few batches myself. I got probably 30 gallons of apples the first time and then 90 gallons of apples in September so we had SO many to use. Ended up having 46 bags/containers of applesauce in my freezer

Apple Butter – the apple butter recipe I do is SO easy and the kids and Kyle just love it so I made it 3/4 different times this year and after giving some away and eating some I have 27 jars downstairs for winter.

Apple Chips – we have been OBSESSED with these all september and eating them as snacks. they are so good and the perfect snacking treat that isnt chips. They supposedly last 6 months so i kept trying to store them but we just kept giving them to coworkers/friends and eating them, we will see if i get any stored away! We have been keeping the dehydrator running day and night!

Apple Crisp – made some of these when we were doing apples, and then put pags of apples for apple crisp in the freezer.

Tomatoes – Salsa – I jut lost a lot of steam on tomatoes this year. We gave so many away and unfortunately wasted some at the end, but they can be so overwhelming. Still got plenty of jars of salsa for the year and I know we won’t even make it through all of them so it is no big deal that i didn’t make more.

Chili Base – Whenever tomatoes came in the house in small batches i just quick got the skins off of them and threw them in the crockpot to make Chili bases. It is basically a spaghetti sauce but we find it just too thin for spaghetti cause but it works great for Chili. I got ** made and put away which makes chili so easy just to plop it in with some beans.

Peaches – My grandma bought a flat of peaches from Fareway so we decided to can those. We went to her house and one morning quick got them canned. the boys love peaches and homemade canned ones are just so much better than the store. We got 16 to go through.

Pickles – this was my first year growing cucumbers! I dont relaly like cucumbers and definitely don’t like pickles, but my husband ( and boys!) love them and i wanted to try to can them this year. Man is pickling the easiest canning out there! I did buy a pickling bag so i didnt even have to put all the seasonings together. It took no time at all and the boys loved them. I only made 8 jars and next year I will definitely be making more!

Carrots – Carrot year was a little better than last year. I unfortunately wasted some just not habing the time to get them blanched and froze so mad at myself for that. Next year plan to plant more and hopefully get them all froze because it is so nice to have those for soups and roasts and my boys love carrots. I got a little over a gallon put away for the winter.

Grapes – Grape Juice – I had made some quarts of this two years ago and the boys loved it so i decided to whip some up again so we don’t need to buy apple juice or any other juices. Deann De Groot has grapes so I went and picked those. I got 43 quarts of grape juice and kyle and the boys love it!

Grape Pie – My mom always talked about a lady for Beacon that brought in grape pie when she came to the specialty clinic. My MIL gave me her recipe and i decided to give it a try. I made 2 through the season and we LOVED them. they are very tart and rich but good and a good use of grapes!

For next year garden planting compared to this year:

Broccoli – Same

Carrots – More

Onions – more (hopefully dont have so many rot)

Potatoes – less

Tomatoes – same

Beans- less and basically all pole

Peppers – same

Cucumber – More for pickling big hit with all the boys

Zucchini – hopefully less!

Pumpkins – more and different varieties

(more room for the vine garden)