August on the Farm | FREE PDF • Clarissa R. West

August on the farm has been BUSY. This has been the most jam-packed month of the year … ironically, no jam was packed (into jars) at all. 😉

The zucchini finally took off, along with the CUCUMBERS. We have the largest harvest of cukes ever this year! I can not keep up with preserving them.

I have been shredding zucchini for the freezer and packing cucumbers in brine for refrigerator pickles.

We also did two gallons of saltwater pickles (true ferment).

We got a decent amount of green beans this year. I have a few quarts of pickled beans in the fridge and several gallons of fresh beans in the freezer.

I put 6 quarts of cubed beets in the freezer. I like to add them to beef stew.
The basil has been doing wonderful! The best it has ever done for me.

I finally got around to cutting and cleaning the garlic that we harvested last month. It is ready for storage, but we will be using it to plant more garlic this fall. I will start a quart of garlic honey and fire cider fermenting with several bulbs, too.

Our raspberries finally started producing for the year – my husband pruned them for a late harvest. We have been picking a few quarts every day!

We are still waiting for our peppers to ripen, although, we have harvested a few jalapenos. The bell peppers and cayenne peppers aren’t doing great because our weather has been wonky. We have some days that are hot and dry, but more days that are cool and rainy!

Our tomato plants are loaded, but they are not ripening either. We are expecting high temps to end the month, so maybe the peppers and tomatoes will turn red for us.

Other than zucchini, we ended up with more pumpkins than other squash. I planted Delicata, Acorn, and other squash varieties, but they are not doing well.

Dairy Goats Update

I am finishing my 5th month of milking 3 goats. I plan to milk for two more months before letting them join our buck to be bred. Next year, I plan to milk 4 goats.

I am getting about 1.5 quarts per day – on average – right now. I am still making about 1 quart of yogurt, 1.5 pints of kefir, and a pint of kefir cheese per day.