This little entry is about my “pantry”…my ongoing project to have something to eat from my yard each month of the year…it is a delightful challenge and I urge you to try. Because this is the Deep South, it may be possible, barring floods and hurricanes, to find something to eat in our yards every month of the calendar year. I am only a self-taught home gardener so anything I write cannot be backed up by academia…it’s just my simple experiences. These are the things I grow or can grow and the month(s) of harvest – some years I am a slacker, but even as a slacker, I usually find something out there.
Let’s begin in Spring…
March… Dew Berries are just beginning and there are a few root veggies still in the soon to be tilled garden…like carrots and turnips.
April… blackberries, blueberries (the very few the birds don’t get first – not very successful here) and the beginning of the strawberries I planted in October
May… plums, more strawberries and maybe a few blackberries
June…all of the summer vegetables begin – tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, green beans…everything except eggplant and okra – at least for me – some serious farmers have these two crops also, but I am not a serious farmer. If I planted potatoes in February, I am digging them up in June before the bugs feast on them.
July…figs and more vegetables from the garden – not much, however, the bugs have moved in by now and the summer rainfall has left the weeding situation about hopeless, at least for me. It’s all about the figs right now, fig preserves on the stove, fig cake in the oven and just fresh off of the tree early in the morning.
August…Pears. I have so many varieties, Kieffer, Bartlett, Ayers, Orient….I lost my old Bartlett last winter and the other varieties are too young to produce so I only picked Kieffer this August…my favorite. Started cutting okra in the beginning of August and I am still harvesting at the end of August…and eggplant until the frost.
September…Persimmons and a few more pears and perhaps the beginning of pecans – if the squirrels don’t eat them all.
October….Pecans and Satsumas around Halloween
November… The beginning of citrus harvest – if there was not a hurricane! Continued pecans and fall garden is filled with broccoli, cabbage, squash, turnips and carrots, hoping to get cabbage and cauliflower and broccoli for Thanksgiving.
December…Nature is giving you the gift of vitamin C to stave off colds and flu…the orange trees are loaded…Louisiana Sweets, Grapefruits, Blood Oranges, Lemons, Limes, Navels, Kumquats…Santa used to put this in my mom’s Christmas stocking during the Depression…
January… Lemons and limes and more oranges and Grapefruit still hanging on, no colds and cruciferous veggies from the fall garden
February…still harvesting Kumquats, Grapefruits and greens from the vegetable garden and digging up renegade turnips and carrots
The End
As I said, this is my little piece of the planet and a very rough outline of what I have. It is not meant to be a guide but more of an inspiration to perhaps grow some of your own food.
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also have bees and chickens, so I get honey in late summer…and eggs throughout the year but mostly in spring and summer when the days are longer…
The picture I posted at the top is my little harvest today, not very much but it is all natural and good for me.
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