starting to clear up

The season's end is here. Everything should be cleared by 31 October. I started on that yesterday.

A trip to the garden yesterday revealed no more cucumbers but again a few zucchinis. Harvested all the remaining green tomatoes - excellent as salsa and I will try fried green tomatoes tonight. More carrots. I also removed the few little ears of corn that were straggling, for use as guinea pig food. Only the rainbow chard and collards remain for harvesting. I left a few tiny winter squashes to see if they do something over the next week or so.


I took down the beans and removed all the rest of the plants, which generated an additional compost heap. Unfortunately, I missed the garden clear-up in the morning during which Parks & Recreation got rid of unwanted material with their truck.


Even at mid-afternoon the light is dimmer and the shadows longer. I've really enjoyed having this garden and I will miss it over the winter months.


This morning I had some delicious scrambled eggs (traded with produce from the garden) with zucchini (from the garden), mushrooms, neuf-chatel and spring onions and a side of sauteed Rose Finn Apple potatoes (also from the garden). I haven't really had to buy any vegetables from the supermarket recently (except lettuce for the piggies) and it'll be strange to be doing that again.

crazy harvest stuff

Managed to nip to the garden in the break between downpours (of course, the weather now is turning nice as it rained itself out). After a week of not going to the garden I expected the worst. And in a way, it came to pass - the cucumbers have followed the beans in snapping the twine. Next year I will consider wire instead. The corn is also leaning, probably because it has been very windy over the last couple of days. Otherwise, the garden is looking surprisingly good after being neglected.

The winter squash are putting their tendrils up the fence - I didn't even know that they are climbers. I keep moving them to the ground but they keep insisting. I guess they win. Continuing to harvest the little carrots, more to come. The guinea pigs love them which means that the humans usually lose out. I also dug up the last batch of potatoes and they are amazing. I mean, what could be better? Come on - Potatoes! Funny shapes! Starch!

This week's harvest was the best yet, so much variety, a little bit of everything and not overwhelming like some summer harvests. Hopefully the weather holds a little bit longer. I will be sad when it all stops.

I bartered some produce for eggs, salsa and hot peppers last week which has rekindled my interest in keeping chickens again. When we didn't know what to do during the zucchini glut we simply had an adapted Greek dish with grated zucchini, eggs and dill (left out the usual flour since Toxicfingers is gluten intolerant). Eggs are so versatile and nutritious. (Hey, Twinkle, if you are reading this - any advice?) Hmmm...next year maybe.