No this is not a recipe! It is an homage to our Garden and to the change of season.
It really is fall. The days are shorter and cooler and the light has changed. We expect the first frost sometime between the middle of October to the middle of November. Between now and then it is about harvesting and preserving.
Since this is the last garden update for 2012, I’ll give you a quick tour. We have two good size pumpkins. The picture above is of the pretty one. There are several huge red cabbage. A little ratty and moth-eaten on the outside edges, but the inside is firm, sweet and beautiful. This year I found out that cabbage moths are for real!
Still left are a few cucumbers, a couple of squash plus quite a few carrots and onions. There is lots of kale and broccoli along with many, many peppers and tomatoes. The tomato plants look like they have been through a war! And in a way they have. We had so much rain that the fungus kind of took over some of the leaves. We got a weird root thing and we had a late snail infestation. And yet the tomatoes are amazing. We are savoring them every day.
David is busy putting the greenhouse together. We should have tomatoes and peppers well into January or February. Next week we are going to plant our “fall/winter” crops: spinach and lettuce in the greenhouse, and beets, onions and more carrots outside. Last year the had carrots, onions and beets all winter long. It is kind of a kick to go dig them out of the snow.
No jack-o-lanterns from our pumpkins! Not enough of them anyway. But the one is too pretty and the other one is too ugly. Here is the big, flat and ugly one. It looks like it has leprosy. But I have my eye on this guy for Thanksgiving pies and pumpkin bisque.
The BIG agenda item for the weekend is canning! We have arranged with a couple of the local farmers to pick up 25-30 pounds of apple “seconds” and 25-30 pounds of tomato seconds. We will pick them up Saturday morning, come home and start canning. Applesauce, salsa tomatoes. Last weekend we put up 10 pints of salsa and I got inspired!
We plan to reward ourselves on Sunday evening by sitting around and admiring the jars of food while watching the Harvest Moon rise. Pretty good reward in my book!
