Apples (~100lbs), chicken of the woods mushroom, honey mushrooms, and chestnuts all gathered in an afternoon driving around the neighborhood. Social capital paying off, all I had to do was stop while riding my bike, ask questions and talk about the homestead to neighbors. They were happy to know that what would otherwise go to waste would end up as cider, soup, and seedling trees.
The same is true for these pears. I learned that they are a common storage variety not meant to be enjoyed until late winter. The neighbor told me they used to pack the pears in barrels of oats and would pull out wonderfully ripe pears in late winter. I will make a few dozen gallons of cider with these including dehydrated ingredients from throughout the summer thanks to the bitcoin mining dehydrator.
Some of the apples were so good I couldn't stand to make cider with them and instead decided to make some apple chips with the dehydrator.
One of the big reasons we are focusing on foraging so much is to prepare ourselves for the processing necessary once our fruit/nut trees are mature and producing abundantly. It seems like exponential growth going from a seedling tree to mountains of fruit and we will be caught off guard if we don't start figuring out how to deal with 100s of pounds of fruit now. One peach tree which fruited for the second year produced over 80lbs of peaches...
#homesteading #permies #permaculture #meshtadel #selfsovereignty #foraging #plebminer #bitcoinmining #abundance #localfood
quotingYields keep coming as fall sets in at the homestead
nevent1q…rc0n
I was able to stop at all the chestnut trees I've been finding around the neighborhood to collect some nuts while running errands. I'm most excited about the proposed American chestnuts I collected from a tree I spotted in someone's yard while on a bike ride. I only was able to find 13 nuts and I will be planting them all. Otherwise, everyone else has Chinese hybrid chestnuts which seemed to have prolific yields but the trees were unimpressive.
There is still foraging to be done on the homestead. These autumn olive berries are ripe and destined for the freezer. Perfect for adding to yogurt at breakfast. We also have peaches and blueberries.
The last picking of cucumbers is enough to fill another 5 gallon crock. While the garden lacked in cabbages and tomatoes, it made up for it in cucumbers and peppers. This will be the third large batch of pickles we will make. There is no longer enough space in the fridge for it all!
#permaculture #permaculture #homesteading #grownostr #meshtadel #selfsovereignty #harvest #foraging #chestnut