1/4 Acre Abundance | A BIG HARVEST from Our 1/4 Acre Homestead

Hey friend, welcome back to Seed and Sprout Homestead. My name is Kelsey. I'm bringing you guys outside today. We are harvesting a whole bunch of stuff. Every year, July hits, and I forget just how hard July hits with all of the harvests coming in. I'm very thankful for it, but it gets overwhelming pretty quickly. Thankfully, the tomatoes and the peppers aren't ready yet, but there's at least 12, 15 other things out there that need to be harvested or need to be pulled altogether so I can get other things planted. We're working against the weather today. It looks like it could rain any moment, but if I don't do this now, we're supposed to have rain for the next few days, and then I don't know when I'm going to get to it. I've got lots of containers ready to go, and we're going to get out there, and we're going to see what we can get done before the weather hits. I wasn't kidding when I said we're working against the weather here. It's going to get bad soon. I'm hoping I can at least get all of this kale harvested before the rain gets here, and then we'll have to resume this at another time. But this kale has produced so much. This is my third or fourth time harvesting. It still looks pretty good. Not too much bugs damage, and I'm trying to keep a tally of how much I'm harvesting from everything and how many plants that I grew to get that amount, so that way I just have a better idea for myself and for all of you who are new to gardening or still trying to figure out exactly how much you need to grow for your family. Of course, there's variables to that, but to give you at least an idea. So I've got lots of kale picking to do. So as I was harvesting the blue scotch curled kale, that actually was getting pretty well eaten by some little caterpillars, but thankfully they only really targeted a few of the plants, so I'm going to give the ones that I personally would not eat over to the chickens, so nothing goes to waste, either to the chickens or the compost pile always. I'm going to grab some of this, I believe it's called scarlet kale. Really beautiful. It's really nice, chopped up finely in salads. I like to use my kale in soups and things, however, if you are using a purple variety of kale, it will turn your soup a yucky gray, FYI. So this gets reserved for, there's a caterpillar, gets reserved for salads. Now if I am freezing this and I blanch this, I notice it seems to take away some of that color, so the soups don't turn as yucky of a color, so perhaps I will do that as well. But this is the time of year where the kale just goes bye-bye because it gets too hot and the bugs, the pest pressure just gets to be a bit too much, so I am going to start some more kale inside that we can plant out within the next few weeks, usually by the end of August or so it goes out. Isn't this color just so beautiful though? I think it's stunning. I love growing different color variations of different crops. I don't know, the colors just, they make me happy. Alright, so we got a nice big pile of kale and the chickens get a nice big pile of kale and this is what the kale is looking like. We might get one more small harvest off of these and then I'll pull them and replace this space with something else and start some more kale to be planted just a little bit later. I have to do an updated garden tour because there's just so many beautiful things happening right now. Look at how whimsical and fun these little honeywort flowers are. This is a honeywort plant and there's like some darker purple ones. It just reminds me of Tinker Bell. My daughter loves them. Alright, next up we're going to get the remainder of my garlic out of the ground. I want to make sure this gets out before it, pfft, I hit my mouth, sorry, I want to get this out before it rains, I really don't want it to be wet, so I'm going to grab my spade and get these guys out. Hopefully I don't see any Allium leafminer damage. We shall see. This one we might not be able to store. That one doesn't look the greatest. It might be okay, we'll see. I could probably let these go another week or two, but with how my softneck garlic turned out with the Allium leafminer damage, I just, I don't want to risk it for just a little bit bigger bulbs now, rather than get nothing because they're infested, but I mean they at least look usable. We will see how they cure, I mean I can always just peel them and mince them up and freeze them or do some of the other methods that I had done before. That's a pretty good size bulb, and that one looks pretty good. Maybe there is hope for some of them. Here's my hardneck garlic harvest. Most of it looks like it's going to be able to be cured, and like these are some pretty decent size heads. There are probably about five or six that were definitely affected by the leafminer. You can just see how misshapen it is and how floppy the necks are. This is one of the first signs I noticed that the necks were getting really floppy, so those I will have to peel apart, salvage what I can, and preserve, and the rest are just going to get cured. The rain has started, I'm going to try and keep harvesting. I thought I saw a pepper in here that was ready. These are banana peppers, I think these are just sweet bananas. Looks like there's a few more starting, but not quite ready to be harvested, so I'll just take this one and it'll probably go on a cheesesteak for my husband. The jalapenos have all started to set their fruit, so hopefully in a couple weeks we'll have a nice harvest there, but there's nothing else ready on these pepper plants, although I want to go check the ones up by the peace tomatoes. You can hardly even move in here, even though I thinned everything out. It has just been really filling in, but the peppers I wanted to check are over here. Oh, there's a jalapeno that's ready. That one, let's see, there's another one over here, and there's one. And that's the little babies. I had to take the audio out here, you can hear my neighbors talking in the background. Just harvesting some lettuce, I have some merlot and buttercrunch, and some Grand Rapids lettuce here. Well, the rain hit, and I got one, two, three, four items harvested. I'm hoping it lets up soon. I was hoping to get everything harvested tonight so I could focus on preserving everything tomorrow, and we will see. Okay, we have a break in the rain, so I'm getting back out here quick, and I know there's a whole bunch of yellow and green beans in here that need to be harvested. This is the third time I'm picking from them, and I think maybe over where I harvested the I'm going to plant some more of these for a second round. I think the two varieties I grew were either a contender or a jade, I'm not sure which packet I ended up using, and then these are just a golden wax bean. That's a nice little bit of green beans there. I planted some Dragontown bush bean and some burgundy beans up front, but they are not ready yet. Got lots of chamomile to harvest. This is one of my favorite scents in the garden, this and lavender and roses. Those are some of my favorites. It's raining again. I'm going to quick pick these petunias. These are the cosmic cherry petunias. I'm going to grab these, and then I'm going to get back inside where it's dry until I have another window of no rain. All right, got another dry patch, so we're back out. I have a helper who is up from his nap, and I'm going to try to harvest some raspberries, although with my helper awake, he's probably going to eat them all before I even get them inside. We will see what we're left over with. Is it yummy? Do you love raspberries? Yes. Yeah. You have raspberries in your mouth and a cookie in your hand. That hand. All right, you going to help me pick them? Can we put them in the basket? Yeah. Okay, help me. Pick the good ones. Remember, they have to be all the way ready. Put it in, yeah. This one. You see a good one? Yeah. Can you get it, or do you need help? Do you need help? Can I see more in there? Oh, right there. Good. Yeah, that's a good one. More? Which one? I don't think that one is quite ready just yet. See one down here. These, you can see them, double gold variety are super sweet. They're Grant's favorite. They're my favorite too. However, the canes are extra thorny and really tear you up. It's really raining. I hear thunder. Ugh. So most of my strawberries are basically done. Oh, here comes more rain. But there's a few stragglers. Oh no. That's what we just got caught out in. Had to make a run for the house. It's kind of fun. We all enjoyed it, me and the kids. And we're back. I'm gonna just keep working here. I've got some beautiful ruby red chard here. I'm gonna grab some of this. I am absolutely determined. I'm gonna get everything harvested tonight, even if it's raining and I am sopping wet. I'm gonna grab whatever beets here are ready. Looks like there's a bit more since the last time I harvested. I've got three varieties here. I have some golden beets, some mayoga, and some Detroit red. The only thing about harvesting when it's wet is everything is a lot messier. Well, we got a few more beets still. Lots more to wait for as they get bigger. All right, we're gonna see if there's any more carrots that are ready. It's starting to be a bit too hot for them. There's a good one. And they're gonna start to bolt. They're gonna start to go to seed. And once they go to seed, they become pretty inedible. They get pretty woody and tough. Not pleasant at all. They also get kind of bitter. I may be pulling all of them today. I might wait a little bit longer on some of the really tiny ones, but I'm not gonna wait too much longer. Otherwise, they're just gonna be a total waste. There's a really nice one. Just never know with these guys. This is a different variety I'm getting into now. We shall see. That one hit many obstacles. There's another really nice one. Another really nice one. The next thing... What do you have? You have a bug? The next thing we're gonna harvest is some celery here quickly, because I hear thunder. The celery is looking really nice. I am surprised. It hasn't grown this well for me before. And I've got three patches of 12. So we're gonna harvest some of this today. Not all of it, because I'm gonna try and do this in batches, so I'm not overwhelmed with the amount of celery that I have to process. So I'm gonna harvest a few today, then I'll come back another day or two and get some more. What do you see, baby? I just have to give you an overview of the cottage keyhole space. Isn't it just lovely? I love all the colors, all these purples and pinks and yellows. There's definitely some things I'm going to change, some things I'm going to pull out, but it really is a pretty space. So we're gonna go in here. I have so many calendula. I have calendula coming out in my ears. So yeah, let's go grab some. I am just loving... Sorry, I got distracted again. Typical Kelsey, I'm always distracted by flowers. This yarrow, it's fallen over and covering up some roses and things. I really need to tie it up better. But this color combination, this dusty pink and this bogus magenta, and then there's more like a lilac color. Super pretty combination. I'll have to see if I can find the seed packet for this variety. I want to say it's like cerise. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly, but between those purples and the milkweed and the butterfly bush, I just love it. Yet again, it's raining. So we're gonna do this quickly. I am just gonna snap all these flower heads off and hustle because the sky... These are our neighbor's kids. They're always on their dirt bikes and stuff out back here in the fields. Hopefully you can at least hear the sound of the rain. It is relaxing. Minus the background noise of the road out front. There are so many weeds in this space. I really need to devote like an entire afternoon to just weeding. It really creeps up on you in July. Miss a day outside and things just pop out out of nowhere. Are you getting all wet? Wet. Oh man. It's okay. Well then. My box is all soggy. And I have to show you. I didn't think I was gonna get any gladiola blooms this year, but look. This thing is stunning. It looks almost like an orchid. I'm so excited. My mom was over and I gasped and she's like, oh what? It's like there's a gladiola. It doesn't take much to excite me. All right, we're back inside, obviously. We all had to come in and get baths. The kids were disastrously muddy. They had a good old time. There is no break in the radar now from the rain and it's been raining pretty heavy. So we're just gonna call it a night on the harvesting. There's a few things I'd like to go out tomorrow morning and do if it's clear enough. There is a bed of potatoes. It's the first bed of potatoes that I planted this year and they are all yellowed and died back. And I noticed some bugs there in the bed. So I want to get those out. And I've got some herbs that I didn't get to, which is okay because with everything I have here, the freeze dryer is going to be running nonstop for the next few days. So that's okay. The herbs can wait and I'll harvest them another day. And for the potatoes, I think I'm just going to compile all of my potato harvesting into one potato harvesting video. I love those videos. I find them highly satisfying and I hope you do too. Harvesting potatoes is my most favorite thing to do in the garden. So now I just want to show you all the stuff we harvested. You guys look at all this stuff. I'm so thankful. And I am going to be busy the next few days. Be sure to tune in on Friday. I'll show you how I am preserving and maybe using some of these things here. But we've got a big old basket of celery. And this is like one sixth of what I have out there. So we've got a lot of that to preserve. We've got two big baskets of lettuce. I saw a few ways to preserve that. And I'm going to see if I can make it last a few months since I'm not able to eat it right now. And there's no way my husband can go through all of his lettuce. Lots of kale. Got our garlic, green beans, nice little harvest of carrots. I still have some more in that bed. And I have two other beds as well that are a little bit further behind. So we'll see how they do in the heat. But I do plan on planting some more for fall. We've got some beets, swiss chard, our yarrow, some raspberries in here. I'm waiting for the big harvest come like September-ish for the raspberries. Lots of calendula and chamomile. Got our cosmic cherry petunias and just a handful of peppers there. But this is awesome and a good start to the 2023 season. All right, you guys. Thanks for hanging out with me today in the rainy garden. I hope you enjoyed harvesting all these things with me. Be sure to tune in on Friday to see what I'm going to do with everything. Have a blessed day and I will see you next time. Take care.