Just Pluggin' Along

I have nothing new (let alone earth-shattering) to report, but maybe that's an indication of the fact that all is well and normal.

A half sunny, half overcast day forecasted so as soon as the dew dries up a little more, I'm going to go outside and do what needs to be done.

 

The red impatiens I planted in the window boxes this year were lush and lovely.  Now?  Not so much.  They're on the way out, and plans to pull them and redo the boxes with small pumpkins and a fall motif are on the agenda today.

Speaking of pumpkins, my jack o' lantern pumpkins are (surprise, surprise) coloring up.  This shot of three of them is straight out of the camera with no tweaking of the color.  Too bad only the tops are orange; the bottoms are still dark green.  But, oh my, are they ever huge this year.  I may need a forklift to haul them out of the garden.

The potatoes are still patiently waiting in the soil for harvesting.  The temp in our root cellar is slowly (slowly being the operative word) going down, but is not nearly cool enough yet for good vegetable storage.

Each year we struggle to find a good place in which to cure our big crop of onions.  This year Papa Pea thought of using our cold frames covering a couple of garden beds.

We pulled out all the onions (above are the yellow ones . . . obviously) and laid them out in two raised beds.  The covers of the cold frames are closed at night to keep the temp from falling too low (and to keep any night time moisture from getting on the onions), and just cracked or opened more widely in the day time to ensure good air circulation.  So far, they seem to be doing okay, but the proof will be in the pudding.  Or in the well-cured onions.  Stay tuned.

I'll close with this picture of our granddog, Tucker, living his hard life.  Nuthin' better than an afternoon nap in the sunshine.

Does This Look Like Garden Produce to You?

I'm bad.  I'm bad.  I'm very, very bad.

Yesterday I should have been dehydrating kale and parsley and processing Brussels sprouts for the freezer.

Instead I took a mental health day and played in my quilt room.  All day.  It was wonderful.

Winding Up Another Week

Even though Jack Frost has not visited us yet, I am on a mission to clear out the garden of just about everything.  Even though I've managed to grow and harvest much more than I would have guessed from the gardening struggle efforts this year, I think the difficult growing conditions have 'bout taken the urge-to-grow stuffings out of me, and I'm oh-so-ready to forget about it until next spring.

I'm leaving the salad greens and such until they get frozen into a petrified state and keel over.  And carrots, potatoes, cabbages and some beets will stay in the ground until the temp in our root cellar comes down more.  Oh, yes, I still have the Brussels sprouts to harvest and process.  The onions, the poor onions.  They need dry weather to start their curing in the soil, but right along with the past many months, rains keep pummeling us so I don't know how well they will turn out.

We had more heavy rain yesterday.  The rain gauge held one and two-tenths of an inch when I slogged out to check it in late afternoon.  Now I see we got another two-tenths over night.  The daylight hours continue to be foggy, heavy, gray and wet even when it's not raining.  Needless to say, this weather makes cleaning out the garden a little more challenging.

Last Thursday was forecast to be a sunny day so Papa Pea and I laced on our hiking boots and set out for a day's play.  We started out in grayness (just when was the sunny day supposed to appear?) and it stayed that way until we were in our vehicle driving home in the late afternoon when Ol' Sol decided to peek out for a short time.  (But at least it didn't rain on us while we were out and about.) 

Our hike was very up and down, in fairly steep terrain which was probably good since it got our blood moving and body temps rising on what turned out to be a very chilly, windy day.  (With no sun.  Oh, I guess I already mentioned that.)

We were in an area that is favored by rock climbers and ice climbers.  It was interesting to come upon these.  I don't know the official name for them but they're obviously tie-downs or some kind of ground anchors.  It was a vertical rock wall straight ahead over that ledge.

But gray day or not, it was good to be out, and we enjoyed ourselves.  Saw a bit of autumnal color which, on the whole, seems to be late in arriving to our area this year.  And doggone it, ya think you're in good shape, but both of us were really feeling some sore leg (and gluteus maximus!) muscles all day yesterday.

My dear husband is off on a male-type fun day, and I was going to attack the garden clean-up again.  (Whadda martyr.)  But ya know what?  It is extremely wet out there (still and yet) so I'm going to toddle on into my quilt room and enjoy some quality time there.  If I had some early fall apples, I'd whip up an apple pie to add a fragrant, cozy atmosphere to the house . . . but we haven't gotten any apples yet.  From the inquiries we've made, it seems we weren't the only ones who've had a really poor apple year.

So in lieu of the real deal, I'll put some of this potpourri to simmer on the stove.  It smells so much like an apple pie baking that it's been know to fool those entering the kitchen into thinking a slice of pie might be in the offing . . . only to have their hopes dashed when realizing it's just the aroma . . . but without the pie.  Bwaaah-haha-ha!

Too Much!

Not that my situation is a lot different than the rest of you gardeners/homesteaders/trying-to-be-self-sufficienters, but throw in a few other difficulties and stresses that one encounters in everyday life . . . and I've just been too busy lately.  Too busy to keep up with correspondence, harvesting, processing, homemaking and doing all the rest I want to do.  Night before last I had terrible, awful nightmares all night long and woke up feeling dreadful physically and sporting an ugly attitude.  How much more of a wake-up call do I need to realize some changes need to be made?

I talked to myself all day yesterday and think I have things going in a better direction.  My self-analysis and pep talk must have accomplished something, because I had a pretty good night's sleep last night and don't feel like biting anybody's (man or beast) head off this morning.  So far.

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Gosh, I didn't mean to give the impression with my last post that our garden was a complete bust this year.  I've been continually amazed at what we have gotten out of it considering the not-at-all conducive growing conditions we had from start to finish.  Plus, I still have bountiful amounts in the garden waiting to be harvested.  We've been luck and although we've had a couple of nights down in the high 30s, no frost for us yet.

My green pepper plants have done wonderfully, although they were "babied" under a cold frame for most of the growing season.  I've harvested some with holes and a few misshapen ones, chopped them and put them in the freezer for use in soups, casseroles, etc. this winter.  I still have to do the main harvest and make them into Stuffed Green Peppers for the freezer.

We've been blessed with oodles and oodles of luscious salad greens most of the summer.  Swiss chard, arugula, mizuna mustard, kale and lettuce is still coming along. 

The yellow and red onions look to be large in size this year.  I haven't harvested them yet.  The tops have toppled over but are still mostly green, so I'm squeezing all the growing time out for them that I can.

I have more slicing and lemon cucumbers than we can eat, I can ferment or give away.  I've never had lemon cukes grow so prolifically.

Our garlic harvest was fantastic.  I think I will be giving small bags of garlic as Christmas presents.  (Kidding.)  We will never consume all of it fresh so I may be dehydrating some of it.

Potatoes, carrots and some beets are still in the dirt.  The beets I've already processed have been beautiful.  Very scab-free and perfectly formed.  I'm expecting the potatoes and carrots to be a heavy harvest.  We'll hold them in the garden as long as we can.  Then they'll be stored in our root cellar which isn't cold enough yet even though we've been using the air exchange fan to bring in the cool night time air.

I harvested and we ate the last of the radishes just last week.  I did succession plantings of them all summer long and because of the lack of any sustained hot weather, they grew like gangbusters.

I haven't put by as many shell peas as last year, but I did plant and freeze sugar snap peas which puts us way over our "pea quota" for the ensuing months.  No problem there.

My green beans never got a chance to do all they could because of the mold that decided to attack them.  However, the yellow wax beans produced so well we won't be suffering any bean shortage.

Cabbage, both red and green, grew exceptionally well, and I've fermented a lot of it over the summer and will store the remaining heads in the root cellar where they kept very well last winter.

The bulk of the Brussels sprouts are still in the garden.  Supposedly, they become sweeter with a light frost, but I'll be harvesting all of them soon, I'm guessing.  It was a good year for them, and they were prolific.

Last but not least, our blueberry bushes continue to bear so heavily I'm afraid the frost will zap the remaining berries before they have a chance to ripen.  This year they have been outstanding.

So you can see our good, ol' garden has come through for us and there would be no way we would starve this winter even if we never left home to buy food!

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As far as the stresses I need to learn to deal with in a better manner so I don't have those nights filled with ugly-bugly dreams, keeping everything in perspective is the key.  My stresses are piddling-little compared to those with which other good folks are dealing.  I'm thankful and appreciative of my life and that I have the good health and ability to be too busy living the life I've chosen.

Gray Day Garden Walk

We seem to be in the midst of a few gray days here.  Again.  (You'd think we'd be used to this since it's been this way NEARLY ALL SUMMER!  Plus we've been warned of possible frost tonight . . . down around 30°.  If the sky was clear I would be worried, but with this heavy cloud cover, I truly don't think we will see frost.

I'm not going to bother covering anything left in the garden.  Whatever will be, will be (Suffering garden burn-out, are we?)

I've been reading your blogs detailing all the things you've been making with your abundant harvests of tomatoes along with pictures showing every surface in your kitchens covered with ripe and ready tomatoes, so I thought I'd share a photo of my tomato harvest.

These are the first ripe tomatoes we've had this season.  (Fer Pete's sake, I can't even grow a crop of cherry tomatoes this year!)

Above is one of my little pie pumpkins.  There are few of them on the vines this year, and they show no signs of maturing.  Maybe I can use them for decorations though.  Green decorations.

The jack o' lantern pumpkins are more prolific and very large . . . but certainly a long way from turning the appropriate color.

I've been delighted to see that my red kuri squash (a winter squash) might actually turn out to be edible.  These are nearly the color they're supposed to be when harvested.  (Picture right out of the camera.)  I just wish they wouldn't get so big.  (Never satisfied, am I?)  These are about three-quarters the size of a basket ball.  Ones just large enough to serve the two of us would be much more convenient.  But when they are this big, I bake the whole thing, use what we want for a meal and then puree and freeze the rest to use in place of pumpkin for pies or other pumpkin desserts.

These seeds were labeled "Mixed Gourds" which I thought would be nice for fall decorations.  The only fruit I've been able to find on the vines is these little white pumpkins.  Hmmm, who messed with my seeds?

The potato vines aren't exactly standing up and saluting anymore but they're far from dead so I do hope we get some more good growing weather for them.  I've stolen some spuds from two plants and they're nice sized already.

I try to plant only heirloom seeds so I can learn how to save my own seeds which could come in handy some day.  But this is the problem we face with our short growing season.  I have lovely, large bean pods on this planting of yellow wax beans, but as you can see the bean bushes haven't died down yet nor have the pods matured enough to dry and give me seeds fit for saving.  The plants will get killed by frost before they dry properly.  And I really can't plant the beans earlier so they would start maturing and drying sooner in the season.  Nope, they go in as soon as the weather and soil are warm enough to keep the seeds from rotting before sprouting.  Yep, the short growing season is a real challenge up here.

So is the very chilly mid-September weather that threatens a frost for tonight!  (But, hey, I'm handling it.)

Oh, How the Wind Doth Blow!

We had a wind and rain storm last night that brought us 3/4 of an inch of rain.  The winds were forecast to be up to 40 mph, and I don't know how strong they actually were, but they managed to do a little damage in the garden.

Papa Pea had to make some repairs to the cold frames that had trouble holding their own in the wind.

I think this signals the end of my corn crop for this year.  Matter of fact, I don't think I'll plant corn again next year.  Last year it got flattened twice by wind, and we got zip in the way of a yield from it.  Perhaps Mother Nature is trying to tell me this isn't corn growin' country.  Sigh.