We have a gopher that just can’t resist bok choy. It took out the last of the bok choy from below yesterday and today. Luckily, the plants were left, and they crisped up in the fridge. We’re having Chinese food again tonight. I seeded some more bok choy in the place of the “harvested” ones.
Some Chinese brocolli sprouted. I reseeded the rest.
I reseeded some green beans once again. Tough going on green beans this year.
I transplanted an evil olive tomato.
Only a few of the green beans in row 1 sprouted, so I replanted today. I came across some of the beans from the previous planting, and I can’t tell if they dried out or their sprouts were eaten. I saw ants in the area a few days ago. The beans on the other rows are doing better.
thevtomato plants are looking healthy, and the pepper plants are starting to look better.
I planted Oregon sugar peas and the first 12 sweet corn seeds in row 1 of the garden. The dirt on that row seems really compacted, so we’ll see how it goes.
We planted potatoes in part of row 2 a few weeks ago. They’re up and looking good.
We’ve had a good amount of volunteer lettuce and orach growing that we’ve been harvesting and enjoying at the dinner table.
We transplanted tomatoes and peppers last weekend.
We watched a deer decimate the fresh leaves on our grapevines yesterday. I’m glad the netting around the garden is working to keep them out.
The baby goats are all growing quickly. They’ve all been disbudded. In a few weeks, they’ll get banded and turned into wethers.
I think I’ve already ruined the new chainsaw engine. Not sure what’s going on.
I think the mushroom harvest has finally ended. Wow! I’m pretty sure we have a year’s worth of dehydrated mushrooms thanks to Heather’s work.
The new growth on the artichoke plants looks great. They’re over two feet tall. Im excited to see what next year brings.
As of yesterday, we were still harvesting tomatoes and the late summer planting of peas. They’ve definitely slowed down, though, with fewer hours of daylight.
Heather pulled two potato plants today and got several pounds of potatoes. Here’s the biggest one:
She also harvested a rutabaga. There are several more out there. Plenty of kale and chard, too. And we haven’t even touched the leeks yet
Heather planted garlic in the garden and around the grapes around the beginning of October. It’s already sprouting.
We started moving some firewood into the carport for this season’s burning. We still have a lot of wood to split to get ready for next season.
Tomatoes are finally in. Here’s one picking.
We also picked 10+ gallons of purple plums from the tree across the street.
The neighbor’s hay got cut on May 17, way earlier than usual. I wonder if there will be a second cutting this year.
The garden is mostly planted now. Transplanted: hops, kale, peppers, and tomatoes. Seeded: beans.
Grant’s garden is also started: Old Mother Stallard beans and a couple dozen watermelon seeds.
We transplanted a rhubarb plant on the north side of the house.
The cilantro that overwintered is blooming, so we should be able to harvest coriander seed soon. Heather checked a couple of garlic plants, and they have about four plump cloves per head. Hopefully by harvest time on June, they’ll have more cloves, but they’re looking great.
Karen the sheep was late to lose her winter coat this year. She still has a small patch on her back.
Lots to catch up on:
The garden was later than usual this year but quite productive. We had days in the 80s into mid-October, so the harvest kept coming. I picked an ear of corn a day for dinner for about two months. Heather made lots of pasta/pizza sauce and salsa with the tomatoes and peppers, and salsa verde with the green tomatoes when the frost came. Heather planned a second crop of potatoes after harvesting the first, and she got a great second harvest.
Grant’s garden in the pasture was a huge success. He just covered the issue head with lots of wood chips during the winter, then planted in late spring. He had lots of corn and zinnias, and he was harvesting melons into early November.
The deer finally discovered our garden a few weeks ago. They’ve decimated some of the greens that we would like to harvest through the winter. I guess we’ll have to come up with some defenses.
Heather has planned a bunch of garlic, boy in the garden and next to the pasture. We’re going is not concerned by gophers again next year.
It looks like the commercial hazelnut harvest was good this year. They harvested the orchard behind us at the end of September and made a second round in mid-October just as the rain was coming.
We started using our woodstove in mid-October when weather abruptly turned from hot to rainy. (Then the rain went away again, but the cold stayed.) We have less than we would like for this winter, but it is enough to make a difference. Plus, when we get insulation installed upstairs in mid-December, we hope that will help a lot. We bought a catalyst for the woodstove, and we’re gradually learning how to use the stove efficiently. We should have plenty of wood for next year, though. A lot of it is pine, and I wish we had more hardwoods, but it’s all free, so we’ll take it. We have probably split and stacked about two cords so far, and we still have those big chunks of pine to cut and split.
Speaking of splitting: I’ll probably have to split the tractor again. The clutch is slipping, and I’m guessing one of the springs on the clutch may have broken.
Yesterday I checked the weather forecast and saw that this week would have a low of 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
And then I felt saaaaaaaad.
I know I can extend the growing season by covering my tomatoes and basil with a row cover, but that’s just prolonging the inevitable. My basil is still producing lush, pungent leaves (and also going to seed), but my tomatoes have slowed to one ripe Italian Plum every three days–and the blue jays get to it before I do. There are just a bunch of green tomatoes on the vine, which I’ll probably turn into green tomato salsa this week.
It’s not just the thought of losing radiant red tomatoes and fresh basil that is making me weepy. I feel God’s love through his creations, and this garden has been full of his love! When I spend time in the garden to observe, work, or harvest, my heart is reawakened with gratitude and love for my Creator. I’ve grown closer to him each day as I witness in real time the miracles of life, growth, sequence, and divine order. Maybe part of me feels like this precious time with him is coming to an end. But a relationship with God never comes to an end–we just change where we both meet up. I can find God in so many other places–in the scriptures, in his holy house, and in prayer.
It’s so hard to say goodbye to plants that I raised from seed, protected from slugs/ducks/crazy heat dome, and watched fulfill the measure of their creation–producing things like baby eggplant, bicolor corn, delicata squash, fennel, red potatoes, and white beets. I probably–nope, definitely!–spent more time with plants than I did with people this summer (unless you count my family). There were so many times Josh walked by the garden while I was crouched down weeding or harvesting and I heard “Oh, there you are!” My fingernails swung the pendulum of being intolerably dirty to being almost clean. No nail brush, however stiff and British, is a match for Mother Nature.
The days are much, much shorter now. We all feel that cozy, nostalgic, fall feeling. Last night for dinner our family had soup, fresh baked bread, cheese and fresh-pressed apple cider (from 100 lbs of apples the family picked yesterday–and pressed using the press Grant and I built this summer for such a time as this!). The whole meal just felt like a warm blanket and a long hug.
I’m going to give myself a season for my heart to be tender. And then I’ll need to find joy in fall and winter. Every season is about growth–and these darker, shorter days mean the growth will happen somewhere else. Somewhere hidden. In the earth.
This is soil building season.
Today is the last day of July. This means that tomorrow is…AUGUST! In the past 24 hours we’ve seen the first few Italian Plum tomatoes start to turn red. We thought it would never happen.
Ten out of our eleven pastured bunnies escaped and ate all the plants Josh bought for me for Mother’s Day. So yesterday I repurchased all my Mother’s Day gifts and replanted them. Two Juliet tomatoes, habanero, and thai chili–but I didn’t replace the snapdragons because I don’t want snapdragons in my garden. I also didn’t replace the leeks because they will grow back. The peppers might grow back too. I also need to replant some greens that the bunnies ate.
Grant, Isaac and I put 2 inch poultry netting on the bottom of the rabbit tractor so they won’t escape, but they’ll still have access to fresh grass.
I also planted 8 Italian Paste tomato plants, another habanero + thai chili for Josh, along with a spicy basil and 6 nasturtiums.
Today I am soaking beans for 12-24 hours before I plant them. I also dug up the horseradish and comfrey and moved them out to the exterior of the pasture.
Today I’ll dig up the ditch in front of our house and plant some wildflower seeds. Mostly sunflowers and millet. Maybe a few other seeds, too.
Lots of work in the garden today. We seeded peas and carrots. We transplanted six plugs of leeks, two Juliette tomatoes, a habanero pepper, and a Thai pepper plant, as well as six snapdragon plants. Heather transplanted a anise hyssop plant in the herb row. We laid down two more soaker hoses and watered. Things have been really dry lately for springtime. Today involved lots of weeding, cultivating soil, and raking.
I’m seed saving!
This is the first time I’ve ever seed saved. I’m doing it because seeds were hard to come by this year. Not super hard to come by, just annoyingly hard to come by. Everyone decided to grow a garden and it took the seed companies by surprise.
We’ll, I don’t want to be taken by surprise next spring. We’re going to have tomatoes, beans, garlic and corn. And a bunch of other stuff. It’ll be a great year, just like this year was!
For the past three days I’ve been picking and saving tomatoes so that I could do a large batch of fire roasted salsa.
Today was that day. It began with picking and washing tomatoes of all shapes, types and colors. We’ve got paste tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, striped tomatoes and that about it.
Then I put the tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet with parchment paper. The tomatoes roasted in a 450 F degree oven, then I blasted them with the broiler to blacken and blister their skins. This is the secret to the sauce.
I got 12 pints today. My family can easily inhale a pint of salsa as a pre-dinner snack, so 12 pints is less than 2 weeks worth of salsa. Kind of weak, but I’m happy that we canned our own homemade salsa this year. It may not fill our family’s yearly salsa needs 100% but it’s a step toward self sufficiency, and that’s what matters.
Next year, though, my salsa ambitions are going to scare you. Who wouldn’t love knowing that they have access to a fresh new jar of organic, home grown, home processed fire-roasted salsa 365 days of the year. At 12 jars per canning session, that’s a lotta math and a whole lot more tomatoes.
365 divided by 12 pints = about 30 days
This means that for the entire month of August, I’d have to can a dozen jars of salsa every day.
Yesterday, amid the smoke, fires, destruction, and global pandemic I harvested about 20 pounds of tomatoes from our 6-row kitchen garden. This is the largest tomato harvest of the season so far!
Gardens bring hope, that’s true. But they also bring something that runs a really close second: fire-roasted salsa. And now, because of a couple hours effort, our family has 16 pints of nature’s gift to tortilla chips.
In yesterday’s batch of salsa I carefully altered the recipe (which your not supposed to do because it’s risky with water bath canning + acid levels). I subbed our gypsy peppers instead of jalapenos (we didn’t plant any hot peppers this year). I subbed our flat leaf parsley instead of cilantro (which would have required another trip to the store–no gracias). And I subbed lemon juice for lime juice because we had lemon juice open in the fridge.
I’m hoping that in just a few days we’ll have another huge, 20 lb. haul of vine-ripened tomatoes. I promise to make more salsa!
I feel very sad for people who have chosen to cut tomatoes out of their lives. We harvested about 15 pounds this morning. They are bursting with the essence of summer. I can’t imagine my life without tomatoes.
These ones will become fire-roasted diced tomatoes, which I will either bottle, freeze or dehydrate. Haven’t decided yet.
Another batch of sun-dried tomatoes! This is one of the best products of summer.
We did about 5 pounds last week and this is probably another 5 pounds. The tomatoes can’t come on fast enough.
That reminds me of something I want to say about this garden. We haven’t been overwhelmed by the harvest. No glut of beans or towering baskets of tomatoes. It’s encouraging that we can keep up and that there’s no waste, however, it means that we don’t have a ton extra to preserve because we’re eating most of it as it comes in.
One more thing, since I’m rambling… I bought more canning jars yesterday. Jars are beautiful!
This is our first big tomato harvest. It makes me happy. We have some paste tomatoes, some heirlooms, some “dollar store tomato seed” tomatoes, and some volunteer yellow pear.
Tomatoes have to be a part of any happy garden because they provide the visual and flavor payoff of all your hard work. I’m the beginning, everything in a garden is green–peas, lettuce, kale, beans, herbs–up until the first blush of the first tomato. It’s a magical moment.
Today I planted tomatoes that I received from a Yamhill County Barter connection. Someone was looking for two truckloads of wood chips for their garden paths. I offered to give them some in exchange for anything “farmy” (like plant starts, fencing, cages, chickens, etc.)
Anyway, the woman I bartered with had a ton of heirloom veggie starts–so I asked her to pick out ten tomato plants. Here’s the selection she picked for us:
2 German Pink Tomatoes
1 Green Giant
2 Vintage Wine
4 San Marzano
1 Sunshine Cherry Tomato
…aaaaaand, one PURPLE TOMATILLO!!! I’ve never grown tomatillos before, much less a purple one! I’m super excited and I cannot type this without gratuitous exclamatory punctuation!!!!
One of my goals this summer is to grow enough tomatoes to supply our family’s tomato needs for an entire year. We probably won’t quite make it, but we’ll be closer than we were last year. This fall I’ll put more focus into preserving our tomatoes–most likely in the form of sun dried tomatoes, so that I can turn it into tomato powder, which is endlessly useful.
Heather brought home another rabbit today, so we have one buck and two does. This one might be pregnant.
We planted the rest of the garden today:
Grant transplanted a bunch of chives along the north wall of the carport.
Got my first Mortgage Lifter tomato today.
