Field Notes from the June Kitchen

We harvested the fava bean patch in its entirety in order to make way for 80-some sweet potato slips. We’ve eaten a few more meals off of those and the rest are in the solar dehydrator to become seed for this fall.

There are summer squash from the chicken field, summer squash from our neighbors, carrots from Abram’s garden, and garlic from the harvest. The first green beans were picked this week and so most meals look like a mess of all of these sauteed up with either a protein or a starch, with a salad from Abram’s garden or a jar of ferment on the side.

That is precisely what this meal consisted of – noodles, home-canned sausage from the Siffords, fava beans thrown into the pasta water, and a bunch of squash and carrots and loads of garlic. Not pictured are the many jars of fermented squash, cucumber pickles, and kraut. And this week it looks like I may have to bust out the canner to get it all put up.

Back when we were suburban homesteaders, I used to spend all of May through October putting up all that I could find in our own garden and the farmers markets. In the nearly five years since we’ve lived here, this is probably the fullest our harvest baskets have been, the most rain a spring has brought, and the most familiar a June has felt.

And boy was it nice to cross any and all vegetables off the grocery list this week.