Harvest/Ingathering 2020

 

A bounty of vegetables

This month of Harvest/Ingathering has passed quickly here at Thistledown Gardens. I've been plenty busy picking produce and stashing it away for winter use. One freezer is full, the second is on its way there. 

Red cabbage ready for the freezer. That's a lot of borscht!

I've gotten the cabbage all frozen- fifty pint boxes all together. Kale and chard, green beans, limas and herbs are being put away, too.

Freezing corn

I have frozen some corn, but still have more to do. There are also more limas and green beans to be done. I've just begun freezing tomatoes and eggplant sauce.

Just some of our vegetables

We're enjoying patty pan squash and tomatoes currently. We did enjoy cucumbers, but are glad that they're all gone now. We've had a few of our potatoes, but most are still underground, as are the sweet potatoes.

Wax and green beans with French fingerling potatoes

New potatoes and green beans mean that it's time for Grandma Neill's green bean soup. There's comfort food! It was delicious.

I've begun picking my dried Aduki beans. They are always the first to be ready. They don't all ripen at once, so you have to pick over each bed three or four times. If you wait too long, the little stinkers split open and you lose all your beans on the ground. The other varieties don't tend to do that. Thankfully. The other dried beans are not ready to harvest yet.

Removing dried seeds

I have also harvested spinach seeds for next year. Noble Giant. A good variety.

While I've been busy with food production and preservation, Bob's been at work in the pantry.

Applying spray foam

The foaming is all done on the two walls that can be done now.

Future closet in the pantry

The closet is all framed in and he's begun hanging the drywall. (Hurray!) 

Drywall begins

Once the drywall is up, he'll shift to cutting firewood. Taping and mudding of the drywall will be done on rainy days. And of course, the fourth wall can't be done until the new windows have been installed later this fall.

It's been dry here this month, with some moderate to warm temperatures. Just in the last few days it has cooled down a fair amount. The seasonal change is certainly close at hand.

I checked my journal, and I'd say that we're at least two weeks behind last year at this time. I hope the weather holds off for those extra two weeks, so we can catch up. But, we get what we get and life rolls on.

Over the Labor Day weekend, we plan to refurbish the strawberry bed. It's not a job that I look forward to, but I am looking forward to it's being done and crossed off of the "to do" list.

We hope you enjoy the rest of this season. Tend your gardens, and don't forget to prepare your inner garden for the season to come.

Till next time,

Kathleen, Bob and Lunette