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Four Oaks Homestead

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Pepperell, MA
Four Oaks Homestead

Small New England homestead on 8 acres.

07/23/2025

Today’s harvest!! And of course I didn’t bring a basket with me 🤦🏻‍♀️

07/22/2025

Small harvest of berries today, but that’s okay! Each year it will get better!!

07/11/2025

I need to start bringing a basket with me when I go to the garden now! Yum!

06/12/2025

It’s been a while since I posted!

Strawberry season is in full swing!!! This doesn’t include the 1.5 quarts I gave to the chickens that had nibbles taken out of them and the 1/2 quart I have in the fridge for them for tomorrow. And I threw out into the woods about a quart of way past their prime/moldy strawberries.

Yum!!! There’s more to pick in the garden, but I had to stop because of the darn mosquitoes!

03/15/2025

10 gallons of sap equals 3 very tasty bottles of syrup!

I did 2 separate boils outside, 5 gallons (approx) each. Then combined them for the 2nd boil, filtering and finished syrup. I’m including some pictures of the process.

Hopefully going to get one more boil, but temps are warming up.

03/09/2025

It has been a hot minute since I posted! Boiling down maple sap today! It’s going to be a short season. It was so cold this winter that sap wasn’t flowing until end of February. I tapped my 2 trees later than that (last weekend).

Also, later this week/early next temps overnight won’t be below freezing and high for the day will be close to 60. You need temps below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. I have a feeling trees will bud soon, which means the end of maple syrup season. 😩

12/06/2024

I think my canning is done for now… I’m going to end up with:

6 quarts turkey and gravy starter
2 quarts chicken and gravy starter
3 quarts turkey broth
5 pints chicken
5 pints smoked turkey in broth
17 pints smoked turkey broth (in the canner now)

Pretty good for Thanksgiving leftovers!!!

Picture of my 5 pints of chicken and 5 pints of smoked turkey in broth.

12/02/2024

It’s been a bit since I posted! I made turkey broth and smoked turkey broth from the carcasses from our turkeys we cooked for thanksgiving. Here are some pictures and video if you want to learn how to do it!

I made 8 jars of turkey and gravy dinner starter (7 pictured, 1 still in the canner) made from leftover turkey. 2 jars of chicken and gravy dinner starter in the canner now. 4 quart jars of turkey broth in the canner now. Smoked turkey broth has been simmering all day and is currently on the porch cooling off! I’ll can it up tomorrow with the leftover smoked turkey.

I had one jar not seal from the first batch of turkey and gravy starter… so I’ll have to use it for dinner tomorrow (oh darn). Not sure if I’ll make soup or a pot pie. Stay tuned!

09/10/2024

This will likely be the 2nd to last harvest of the season.

We got a LOT of peppers!!! A mix of hot and sweet. Most of them will be turned into cowboy candy (aka candied jalapeños). I’ll just use whatever peppers I have. The sweet ones will balance out the super hot ones (I hope 🤣). There are still a few peppers on the plants. I’m hoping they will ripen in the next week or so.

We got a decent harvest of tomatoes. Still a few cherry tomatoes out there. We shall see if they ripen before a frost comes.

Harvested potatoes, one lone 8 ball zucchini, and a couple strawberries (they were soooo good)!

I have a couple small eggplants that I’m hoping to harvest before a frost comes.

08/14/2024

Another tomato harvest! 9.46 pounds! Also harvested some peppers.

I had my first tomato sandwich yesterday!!! Also had one today for lunch. Guess what is on the lunch menu for tomorrow? 😜 LOL!

I also noticed some tomato horn worm damage on my plants and started looking around for the evil bu**er. I found him, but looks like the beneficial wasps got him first! Woo hoo!

08/12/2024

I finally strained the chive flower vinegar I made a while back! Look how pretty!!! 😍

OMG… I neglected the garden for a few days. I probably shouldn’t do that now that the tomatoes are coming in 🤦🏻‍♀️. We had a bit of rain (about 2 inches according to the rain gauge). There were a few split tomatoes that the chickens got to enjoy. Not counting those, I picked 16 pounds, 9 ounces of tomatoes!!! Wowzer! I’m sure I’ll find a few other split ones for the chickens… but not too shabby of a harvest!

My tomato plants look horrible right now. I haven’t been out to fertilize or trim or tie them up, but they are producing! I’m hoping to pick peppers on Friday. I’m keeping them in the plants as long as possible, until I have time to process them.

08/06/2024

Huge tomato harvest!!! 4.5 pounds!!! I wanted to pick what was ripe and what was blushing before all the rain hits us. I have quite a few peppers, mainly jalapeños) to harvest but I’m leaving them for now. I want to wait until I have time to process them (meaning, make cowboy candy).

While I was out in the garden, I did some much needed weeding. Still have more to do but cooler temps are coming this week, so I’ll get it done.

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Pepperell, MA
01463

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