I was the back up bidder but I got this big pumpkin for $2!
For only $20 I bid on and purchased:
* A bushel of turnips
* Five big "kushaw" squash
* The big pumpkin
* 20...yep you read that right...TWENTY.... small cabbages
* one peck basket each of tomatoes and sweet potatoes
* three big chinese cabbage
To put the pumpkin price in perspective, I recently paid $2 for a smallish pie type pumpkin at a local farm market. The big pumpkin was a total score. I got skunked, tho, on the carrots and beets. Those beets are still going for $8/peck basket!
After a while I realized that I was often bidding against one particular woman. I noticed because whenever something came up for bid that was "weird" the auctioneer looked at me..and at her. So I finally asked her.... "Are you buying for your hogs?" And then she laughed. "Yep."
A lot of times you can get excellent end of season bargains of not-perfect produce that is perfect for feeding your pigz. She and I laughed that we were doing the same thing. I hope I made a new friend.
I needed the guys at the auction to load my big pumpkin....and then I realized I was going to be in a pickle. How was I going to get this big pumkin down the hill to the pigz, let alone get it over the fence? I had dreams of rolling down the hill at the pigz in a kind of "pig bowling" kind of thing...
Pigz love pumpkins.
But alas we just put it in the wheelbarrow and trolleyed it down there. My husband heave-ho'd it over the fence where it exploded on impact. The pigz were thrilled.
Yesterday we took the failed freezer out into the garage. It turned out to be a total loss. Even tho it kind of froze some things... later when we checked it.... everything was ruined. Luckily I only put a few things in there but still. A loss. So I'll be using that hunk of junk as cold storage for some of these long keeping things - like the turnips. We don't even have to plug it is... it's just a big insulated box for long term keeping. Last winter we had great success in keeping carrots and beets in the garage just using straw and heavy blankets. This dead freezer will work much better. And now we need to buy another freezer.
We had our second big freeze last nite - I'm hoping that some of my celery made it...but it was pretty frosty last nite. Of course it's going to be 60* later...so who can keep up. But the growing season is over. I still have high hopes for my green house.
Happy Monday everyone! What are you plans for long term winter storage?
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4 comments:
oh wow, lucky pigs!
I would like to eventually grow varieties of apples, sweet potatoes, onions, and other foods that store well so I can eat them all winter long. I'm not sure if that is realistic but even just a couple of months of fresh food in the cold months would be nice.
Plus canning. So far I have only dabbled.. applesauce, stew (don't know how I didn't poison myself), and jam. I will try new things though. Pickles is something I'm interested in doing. Right now the only "pickling" I've done is slicing up carrots into sticks and plopping them in leftover pickle juice for a few weeks. They taste like pickles, just more crunchy.
And freezing of course! Hopefully we get a deer this weekend and I can start that chapter in food storage.
No winter storage of veggies here. The big pile of squash has mostly gone to the pigs, and I am digging up the last of the beetroot to give to them as well. No frost here as yet, but snow on the nearby mountains, which will bring our temperatures down. Not to worry, it is winter!
I was going to ask - are you going to eat that but food for the pigz is brilliant!
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