This Is Why We Do Urban Homesteading

This Is Why We Do Urban Homesteading-
Sometimes I'm more philosophical than others, and if you've read my posts you probably recognize those times. This is one of those. It's really easy in the course of life to get caught up in the mundane things. Commuting to your job five days a week, doing laundry, cleaning the house, all the really boring parts of life the rest of the time. Then there's taking care of the chickens-

and then the eggs!

We also tend the garden and see what we can grow here at our little homestead. When we plant things in the spring and early summer there's always a lot of labor involved in that, then watering, fertilizing, weeding, etc. We have planted a ton of perennials as well, and lots of pollinator plants. Now we're getting into the full harvest season! I looked at our corn this weekend and was thrilled to see that some of it was ready to pick! I haven't tried growing any since we've lived here-

Beans at the base

Sweet corn

Saturday night dinner, it was amazing!

There's also: bell peppers, Jalapeno peppers, Gypsy peppers, Giant Italian Marconi peppers, pickling cukes, Lemon cukes, the five different kinds of tomatoes, Itchidai eggplants, kale, collard greens, green beans, Zucchini, two kinds of baby ornamental pumpkins, peaches, apples, pears, Basil, Thyme, Rosemary, Italian Parsley and the blackberries that keep on giving!

Big, tall Basil, pesto time soon to freeze!

Baby pumpkins by the beans-

All homegrown cukes and tomatoes, more Saturday night dinner

Green beans, bacon & onion, another Saturday night dinner dish

It's really amazing when I looked around this morning at exactly how much we have grown here on the small, urban lot. Dave started picking some peaches last weekend but we couldn't really process anything since we had two days of babysitting and it just didn't work. Luckily the Red Haven peaches weren't dead ripe yet, but they were this weekend-

Dave picked all the peaches, about 125 Lbs., all organic and we know exactly what is in them. Compost, water, and a little manure, a tree and that's it! No bugs either!!!

Canning started

Room for peaches

All done, 25 Qts. canned (10 Spiced)  and 10 Qts frozen. I made spiced peaches with clove and cinnamon sticks, should be nice for the holidays! More apples will fill another shelf soon.

Peach crumble

We also have our apple tree which is really loaded and should be ripe in another month or so-

I made a big batch of pasta sauce with our tomatoes last weekend and froze half of it. Dave and I deep cleaned the freezer a week or so ago and it is filling up! Next month we'll be canning and freezing lots of apple products. The pears will be ripe then too, but we just eat them fresh and bake. This is when I'm really glad we have a dishwasher. I've thought in the past if I were by myself I'd pull it out and add shelves with basket. No I don't think so! Look at all those lovely clean jars-

When I look at all the food that we can produce, except for meat proteins, I do feel really blessed. It's been 12 years of taking this lot from turf, a couple of trees and literally nothing else, to our very productive little homestead. It's been a ton of work, financial investment, sacrificing vacations, and yet here we are and we're both so happy. It's also still a work in progress. We want to add more edibles in the front yard- Strawberries, maybe some raised beds, less turf. A lot of people we know wonder why we enjoy spending weekends at home especially in nice weather. Maybe if they took a tour of our homestead they would understand a little more. Next winter, when it's cold outside, we can have our own green beans, canned peaches, and maybe a homegrown apple pie. Then there's all of our wonderful eggs! So while I thought I'd like to live out in the country, I realize (except more room for goats and a beehive) I think this is pretty much it. And I can live with that.