WOW!
The garden is reaching new heights...
Seriously...we've never had corn get so tall before!
The cooler weather is approaching - much to my dismay.
Don't get me wrong, the summer had its moments.
Overall it was rainy and lacked a lot of sunny days to dry things out.
The result was twofold:
1 - we hardly had to water the garden at all! YAY!
2 - we had mushrooms growing in our garden...not the edible kind...sigh.
There were some good things about all the rain...the cucumbers seemed to LOVE it!
This year had to be the first time in a long time that we have had luck growing cukes.
Our cuke machine seemed to work out great.
Both slicing cukes and pickling cukes flourished in our cuke machine.
Can you believe the red headed corn we have???
It's almost hot pink!
Ewww....anybody know what the heck this thing on my cornstalk is???
Investigation required...in the meantime, I snapped it off and tossed it in the fire pit.
Brussels sprouts have got to be the cutest thing I've ever grown...
Once we snapped off the lower leaves the wee lil buds were more visible.
It is like seeing a whole host of tiny cabbages stuck on the side of the stalk!
(In my mind, its baby cabbage patch kids...but that's just my 80's brain)
Our jalapenos are also going like crazy!
I've already given away lots...
And those I kept have been added fresh to recipes
or pickled.
We've also begun the process of thinking about next year's garden.
As the fresh produce slows down, we leave some things on the plants to dry for seeds for next year.
We do that with the peas and beans....that is if I can stay away from the peas long enough.
You can also use either in soups all winter!
(Just make sure you keep enough for planting)
I keep mine in mason jars once dried thoroughly.
As we eat the jalapenos, we keep the seeds and dry them on screens.
I also tried to slice, de-seed and dry the actual peppers.
We'll see if it works out.
The herbs are also coming to an end.
Since we didn't have a hot summer, a lot of our herbs are still producing.
I gather some herbs sporatically, then wash and pat them dry.
I place them between 2 screens on a warm fall day with a nice breeze.
I bring the screens inside at night so the dew doesn't affect the drying process.
(we have been having pretty heavy dews lately...luckily for the rest of the produce, no frosts yet)
How are you saving your harvest?
Are you already thinking about next year's garden?
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