LOCALadk Magazine

Fall 2017 LOCALadk Magazine 19 LOCALadk egg shells, and even the ashes from our woodstove. The com- post provides our crops with essential nutrients and miner- als that the soil might not have sufficient levels of on its own (our soil tends to be sandy and acidic.) Composting comes with its own list of chores but is easily one of the most bene- ficial jobs on the homestead and worth the effort. With all the seedlings safely sprouted both indoors and in our greenhouse, we turned our attention to another growing "problem" on the homestead: bunnies – tons and tons of bun- nies. My husband and I quickly realized that the population of bunnies was unmanageable without the use of a garden fence. We want the bunnies to feel free to roam the land and eat the dandelions, but to stay far away from our tomatoes, green beans, carrots, and any other crops that we so pains- takingly grew from seeds. With a garden as big as ours, the fence proved to be a long, daunting, and rather expensive chore – but we knew it was necessar y. It has since paid off. Besides the bunnies, the fence wards off other animals from eating our supper. Thankfully our dog, King, has an uncanny ability to distribute his scent all around the perimeter of our property. This has seemingly discouraged the deer from ever attempting to get too close. We see the deer ever ywhere and are happy to share space with wildlife, just as long as the deer don't think our garden is a free meal. With the now impenetrable garden fence up, and the last chance of frost behind us, it's time to do one final tilling of the garden beds and begin the process of transplanting seedlings, tending to weeds, watering, watering, and wa- tering some more. The early summer months are all about patience, weeding, and making sure to replant crops ever y couple of weeks so that we can have more than one har vest per summer. Replanting and rotating crops allows for more har vests and more time to process the har vest once they are ready for picking. Along with all the prep work, tilling, sowing, watering, weeding, cultivating, and har vesting, there is the daunting task of food preser vation and storage. Go ahead, plant 20 pounds of carrots…when it comes time to preser ve the fall har vest, you'll need a few willing, helpful hands – or enough daylight – for roughly 10 hours of canning. There are many methods of food storage that we use on the homestead. Among them are food dehydration, freez- ing, and canning. With a basement that keeps a constant temperature between 35 and 45 degrees, high humidity, and darkness, it is the perfect location for our "root cellar." I had my husband install shelving units to store all our hard work and canned goods so that come winter we would be fully stocked. Canning is a labor of love. It is ver y time consuming, but can provide much needed value to the homestead if done prop- erly. With the use of both a pressure canner and a bath can- ner, we have the ability to can almost anything. Even those carnivores out there can use canning to preser ve meats for long periods of time. With the proper use of tools and knowl- edge, canning is a homesteading necessity.

• Cover