Crazy Corn

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We were away for 4 days but by the time we arrived home 2 days ago the corn was ready to harvest.  I picked a total of 28 cobs.  Apart from setting aside 1 cob for GMan to have for lunch today I processed all of the corn.

My preferred option is to blanch the cobs then strip the kernels to freeze and use as required.

To see the full details of the process I use please check this old post from 2014.

This year I ended up with 2.5kg of frozen corn kernels.

2020-02-08

The corn is not the only produce we have in abundance at the moment.  We have been picking, eating and giving away figs aplenty.  The persistent rain over the past week has been the enemy but I am not about to complain.  Additionally, we have been fortunate to able to pick dozens of mangoes from a neighbour’s trees.  I shared some with friends and family as well as freezing multiple jars of pulp and containers of mango pieces.

Processing large quantities of a particular harvest can be a bit time-consuming but it ensures that as little as possible is wasted as well as providing the opportunity to enjoy your own local produce for an extended period through the year.

Fabulous February

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Today is the first day of the month.  The weather has been a bit cooler the past week and my mind starts to turn to gardening as our prime gardening season beckons in the next month or so.

Despite the fact that it is supposedly too hot to grow much over the summer there always seems to be something to harvest in the garden and today was no exception.

Harvest

This is the reward today for what has been a summer of neglect in many ways.  Avocadoes, purple beans, corn, figs, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, lemon and eggs.

Corn
This is the first of the corn.  It is not bad considering that the seeds were expired by about 3 years, they got no supplementary watering, were almost dug up by the chickens, flattened by the wind about 3 weeks ago and generally neglected.

The Duke cooked 2 cobs for his lunch and declared that it was the best corn we have ever grown.

Lunch
Tonight I am going to blanch the rest, strip the kernels and freeze them for use during the year.  I do not particularly like corn on the cob but we do add it to dishes such as tuna mornay and it will be great to use our own organically grown corn instead of imported, canned corn kernels.  I will also be drying more of the figs.  I did some last week as well.

I have never blanched and frozen corn before so I will make sure I take some photos and will tell you all about that in another post.

An Abundance

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When you grow your own fruit and vegetables there are invariably times when the amount is quite overwhelming.  Some things are difficult to preserve and others have a very short shelf life.  Figs definitely fall into the latter category, so when I picked a large bowl full yesterday there was no doubt that I had to do something with them straight away.

I pulled the dehydrator out of the bottom of the pantry and set to work.

Figs

I set the dehydrator up on the laundry bench and 24 hours later we have semi-dried figs with nothing added.

Dried figs

I keep them in the refrigerator as they are not completely dried.  They will not be eaten just yet as we still have plenty of the crop yet to be picked.  There may well be enough to dry another batch in a week or two.

Corn Collapse

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It would be heartbreaking – not to mention an economic nightmare – being a farmer.  It was bad enough when my lovely little crop of corn was just about flattened almost a week ago.  We had a 40C + day with hot wind followed the next day by wild thunderstorms, gale force winds and rain.

This was the result.

Collapsed corn

The following afternoon I managed to add some extra soil/mulch to the bed and propped them back as upright as I could.  I was not overly optimistic but it appears to have been reasonably successful.

Here is the same bed 5 days later.

CornMeanwhile, we continue to manage to harvest something from the garden almost every day.  This is quite an achievement since we devote almost no time to it and a lot is actually self-sown.  Today’s bounty included blueberries, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, figs, avocadoes and eggs from the chickens.

Are you picking produce at the moment?  Perhaps you are snowed in and planning the spring planting?