About 1:30 p.m. Papa Pea banished me from outside as he was tearing apart the whole apiary dividing and combining the various hives to get them in the shape he wanted for the winter. We had one heckuva lot of angry bees flying around, and he was afraid one (or more) of them would take out their upsetness on me. I haven't gotten stung once this whole season, I'm happy to say, and didn't want to ruin the record so I abandoned my garden work for the day.
Good thing I got a lot done before then.
All the onions are harvested and laid out to begin the curing process. Although the picture doesn't look like it, I planted an equal number of yellow and red onions. I know the word is red onions usually don't keep as well as yellow ones, but I've always had good luck with them.
The slicing cukes in the cold frame are still producing like mad. Even the trellis of pickling cucumbers (Papa Pea was going to make some fermented pickles, but changed his mind) which have no protection from the less than good pickle growing temps are doing well. I've found that we like them chunked up in our kimchi mix and that's what I'm using them for.
What a haul of green peppers I found. If you want to find me later today, I'll be in the kitchen making another double batch of stuffed green peppers for the freezer.
Lastly . . . Kowabunga, Chief!! I found an eggplant!
Have you ever seen a more grotesquely formed eggplant? Maybe it looks better from the other side.
No, I guess not. The slugs apparently liked it though as there are all kinds of ugly-bugly slug nibbles all over it. This was the only fruit that formed on any of my four plants. Sigh.
Methinks the forecast for today's rain was accurate. We've had rolling thunder all morning and now this. The above picture, looking out our living room windows, was taken a couple of minutes ago at 8:58 a.m. Is that spooky, or what? It was actually that dark outside. Aaaannd . . . the torrential rains just started along with really blowsy winds. Batten down the hatches, men!
25 comments:
From the looks of your harvest you'll be pretty busy in the kitchen. Just beautiful. Do you bottle your honey for yourselves or sell it? It looks like your set for Winter. I bet you don't do much grocery shopping. You have everything right there and everything looks beautiful!
Those peppers are amazing! I actually got six Tom-Thumb-sized eggplant this year, which is six more than last year. Can you salvage any of that behemoth? Papa Pea is a brave man...
I checked our weather. Does not look like that is coming our way. I think we are farther north than you as you said you are zone 5 and we are 4. We had 5+ hours of rain on Wednesday, but fortunately that has dried out already. Unfortunately it brought the mosquitoes back.
We had a warmish day yesterday too. Finally we share some weather! Your garden just keeps giving, what a beautiful thing. My beets and leeks are still in ground. My pumpys are almost all orange so soon harvest time for them. I love the light against the dark window photo. We are sunny now but are being warned of rains coming our way. Another wet weekend in store sadly.
Hi Mama Pea :)) I'm in AWE of your harvest, especially the onions, wow! Ha ha ha...your eggplant looks more grotesque than my cukes I think! :))
That photo is kind of creepy at nearly 9am. How come the bees were angry?
So glad your peppers cam through for you! That is one weird eggplant. Are you allergic to bee stings?
I'm so glad you have such an abundant harvest. I'm kinda jealous. My garden did so poorly this year I would up tearing it out & putting it in the compost heap. Happy eating, Sandy
Wowza! Look at all those green peppers!
Theresa - I got my double batch of stuffed peppers done this morning and have enough peppers for another single batch!
Keeping bees up here in northern Minnesota is a challenge, to say the least. Because of winter die-off and the general diseases affecting bees world-wide, we haven't managed to have a honey harvest for a few years. When we have it, I substitute it for sugar in all my recipes, and have had some extra to give as gifts or use for bartering. The sad news is that there won't be a harvest again this year as Papa Pea is working hard making some changes he thinks will help in the long run and the bees will need all their built-up stores to get them through the coming winter. Maybe next year?
We try really hard to grow/raise as much of our own food as we can, but certainly can't say we're totally self-sufficient at this point. But we keep trying to improve!
Susan - Nah, I'm not going to try to salvage any of that eggplant . . . too eaten up by slugs and so malformed, it would be hard to get a decent slice (or chunk!) out of it.
The thing is when Papa Pea does get stung it hardly bothers him. I envy him that!
Athanasia - We're Zone 4 like you and have certainly been getting our share of the rain lately also. It came down so hard this morning with that storm that we have puddles in the driveway. Mosquitoes still around? Oh, poop! Don't send them our way, please!
MrsDM - We haven't had anything close to a frost yet so even though growing conditions haven't been perfect, some things are still producing. My beets are still in the ground, too, but I've got to get the ones I'm going to process and freeze in and done one of these days soon. And we've got another wet weekend AND week coming. Ugh.
Rain - When you start messing with the hives of bees (switching frames around, moving boxes up or down, opening up the hives to see what's happening) they think they are being attacked (like a bear would rip apart a hive to get the honey) and so go into defensive mode. Also, they are more docile during "inspection" time if you can do it on a sunny day (which it was yesterday) so that's why hubby had to do it and foul up :o( my gardening time. We've had so many gray, rainy days that he hasn't been able to do what he did yesterday.
We use a lot of onions in a year's time so I'm always thrilled when we get a good harvest of big onions like this year.
Michelle - There are still small peppers the plants so I may get more than I need! Matter of fact, our good neighbor makes a spicy tomato juice (he has a tunnel greenhouse for his tomatoes) that he shares with us and his peppers have not been prolific this year so today we took misshapen peppers (not so good for stuffing) over to him to use.
Yes, I am allergic to bee/wasp/hornet stings. It's gotten worse in the last few years, but I've not come close to suffering anaphylactic shock, although I do have an Epipen just in case. I tend to swell up like a balloon (literally) at the sting site and feel like I have the flu for about three days afterward so do all I can to avoid getting stung.
Sandy - I had a smaller yield on many things this year, too, but have done well on others. We had a terrible invasion of flea beetles that have set our cabbages back. Don't know if they are going to make decent sized heads or not. :o( Some years sure are better than others, aren't they? But we gardeners keep trying!
Kristina - Yep, a really nice bunch of them. And these are smaller in size than the first batch I got!
I believe that your eggplant is a genetic mutation not unlike those calves that go round so often with 6 legs two heads with 3 or 4 eyes in each head. When you look closely one can see a central top and then branches into separate yet conjoined appendages. See what happens when a vet tech reads blogs ?🙄
Hi, Momma Pea, We're in Southern Indiana. It's been a hot dry summer. We had about an inch of rain when what remained of Irma reached us but it's been dry and in the 90s every since. They are predicting that we'll begin cooling down late next week but no rain in the 10 day forecast.
Last year, I had loads of eggplants off of 2 plants. This year, I decided to plant 2 kinds - 4 plants. We didn't get a single one. It's been a very strange summer for gardening.
I sure wish I had your pickling cucumbers. I planted three plants in pots this year and had a few but not enough to make pickles. No one raises them around here for the Farmers Market. Guess I will buy my pickles at the store. We are having heat alerts yesterday and today! Almost the end of Sept?
or cucumbers have been mad this year so many a lot have gone to the goats and chickens far too much for us to use, peppers are on the list to harvest this week along with a sort out of the Bee top bar hive it needs open heart surgery so need a clear day to sort it out :-)
Goatldi - Yep, that's just what I was going to say. (Hahahaha!)
Mary - Yes, it HAS been a strange summer for nearly all of us gardeners!! Either too much rain, or not enough. Not enough hot weather, or too darn cold. Let's all hope next year is better. Will I try eggplant again? I say "no" right now, but you know what happens when we start ordering new seeds!
Myrna - You should be in pickle growing country, m'dear! I'm truly surprised no one has them to offer at the Farmer's Market.
Our weather has been in the 80s and so humid you could cut the air. Ugh. More like summer weather than we had all summer. Not right, just not right.
Dawn - We've not experimented with a top bar hive. Would be interested in hearing how yours does. Is this the first year for yours?
I did up the last batch of stuffed green peppers yesterday. Now have our quota in the freezer! Our good neighbor hasn't had much luck with his peppers so any more we get will go to him. We're still getting cukes like mad. Wish we could somehow save them fresh way into winter!!
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