Skip to main content

Post Vacation Harvest

So we just got back from a longish vacation to the UP.  We rented an Airbnb with my brother's family - and my sis-in-law and I went in, armed with Clorox wipes to disinfect the entire place 
before we let the kids in.  I figured it is the safest kind of vacation we are going to get this year.  

We kayaked and played Whiffle ball and fished and hunted turtles and roadtripped to Wisconsin for lunch on a rainy day.  We went to Garlyn Zoo and Kitch-iti-kipi and Miner's Rock and the three building town of McFarland - which boasted a house of ill repute as one of the three.  Unsurprising given my ancestry research about Clan McFarland.   They were a fun, but rowdy bunch.

While we were gone, my beautiful in-laws and my sister with the green thumb kept an eye on my garden and our feline population.  This morning I meant to take garden walk photos of the August garden in its wild glory - however... I harvested and pruned for almost two hours.  Then I had to come in and DO SOMETHING with most of it.  So you get harvest/processing photos instead.

The morning harvest.  I have tons of peppers, too, but chose to leave those for tomorrow.  I only have two sets of arms - my normal human ones and my invisible mom ones.  My extra invisible gardening set are on back order.  Damn Covid.

Several darlings got too big to eat, so I scooped out their seeds to ferment for a few days to save seed.  Bush cuke, 8 ball zucc, black beauty zucc, and butter pan summer squash.

Then I grated up all the squash left and saved it for bread or cookies later.
Before leaving for vacay, I harvested all my onions and set them on drying racks.  Gracie was super excited when I brought them in.  She was NOT super helpful.
I had high hopes of braiding my onions.  The damn youtubers make it look so freaking simple.  Mine however is more of a twine-tied-where-needed bundle 'o onions.  Which I am perfectly content with.
I have this left to play with for the rest of the week after handing off some to my squash-loving people. 
This my largest tomato ever....18 oz ...isn't she purty?
And for the first year ever - we have baby eggplant.  So darling.
One last quick pic - just because I am amazed at how tall this cucumber plant grew.  There is a giant cucumber at the very top of the window that I couldn't reach that will have to be used for seeds.  Also, no garden post is complete without some picture of my apprentice - who helped me harvest and attempt to braid onions.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seed Day

What to do with a gloomy, rainy Sunday in October....also, how is it October? My apprentice and I spent most of the morning sorting seeds we have been saving in brown paper bags.  When it is busy during the summer, I just keep deadheading flowers and throwing them in bags to dry out.   Then when things slow down, I will sit down with some good music and break the flowers down.  Last year I just saved them in normal envelopes.  This year I have these artsy fartsy ones made of craft paper.  I bought a pack of 100 online for about four bucks.  And I just tape them shut once I am sure all the seeds inside are 100% dry - otherwise they mold. True to form, I may have gotten carried away. Then Ava and I headed to the garden.  We have drying scarlet runner beans on the vine, but I wanted to bring them in and let them finish drying inside. There were way more than I thought, so I currently have them drying in my delicate...
Post a Comment
Read more

Garden Walking and Sneezing

So part of my 40 yr old birthday decline was the discovery that I am allergic to most of nature.  And these allergies make my body literally attack itself.  Naturally, I am a gardener with cats.  Apparently right now there is a particularly nasty allergen floating around because I am pretty miserable and second guessing every symptom - allergy? Covid?  Allergy? Covid?  For the sake of my rapidly unraveling mental health, I should probably just go get tested. With that said, I wasn't going to do much garden walking if I could avoid it, but I was lured outside by this beautiful baby... She is our first-ever mature melon.  A Minnesota Midget Melon to be precise.  She was Ava and Emma's pet project this spring and it is super exciting to see her ready to pick!  So since I was out already....here is a peek at my watermelon, looking about halfway cooked. And these zucchini that didn't get the memo that they should be dying right ...
Post a Comment
Read more

And The Garden Goes Wild

I took an after-rainstorm walk this morning and my backyard garden beds have officially gone wild.   Scarlet runner beans are doing their job building me a living wall in the back yard.  Also, this year they are actually giving me beans!  Last year, they just flowered but never produced.  I am going to just let them all dry on the vine for seeds for next year. My ladder collection is doing beautifully hahaha...the winter squash is is back up in the air instead of choking out the peppers and we have lots of squash growing. The tomatoes are all started to ripen so I am going to freeze them for a few days until I am ready to do a canning day.  Ava helped me harvest yesterday - by crawling into the beds like a jungle explorer.  I should have got a picture, it was pretty cute. More scarlet beans....I love them. And these baby peas all sprouted from dried peas from our spring...
Post a Comment
Read more