The end of summer is upon us. I've had to wear a sweater in the mornings quite a few times over the past week. The cooler nights are luxurious, I've been loving curling up underneath 2(!!) blankets for warmth - I'm strange, I know.
Sadly though, this means all of my gardening is beginning to wrap up - my freezer is filled to bursting and there is still more bounty to reap. But the garden is looking a little less full without the snow pea vines snaggling up the 5 ft trellis and the corn stalks beginning to dry out (I'm planning to use them as fall decorations once they are dried up completely). The tomatoes are pretty much at their end - though there are tonnes of green tomatoes on them, the nights have been too cool to ripen them, though I'm still holding out for a bit of a late summer heat wave (mostly because I've already done a batch of vintage
Green Tomato Chili Sauce - and don't know what I'll actually do with another batch). Luckily I planted a lot of very hardy greens that will continue into the cooler season and flourish, including Kale, Swiss Chard, Collards and Brussel Sprouts.
I've also gained a lot of insight into what I'll plant next year and what I will definitely leave out. Bear with me, this post is for my own good - hopefully I'll reread it before I get carried away planting exotic vegetables next year. I'm somewhat on the fence on carrots and corn; the carrots have been delicious but they take so long to get to a good size and are so cheap at the grocery store; the corn turned out sweet and delicious, but also very small, with about two good feeds coming from one 25 ft row of corn - they were easy to grow though, but also are very cheap at the grocery store.
I will not plant Rapini and Bok Choy again - they bolted as soon as the first heat wave hit. I will not do cucumbers again - it was too hot, and they got too big and hard too quickly- I just couldn't seem to get them while they were little and delicious. The eggplants didn't do very well either - I've gotten maybe 2 or 3 feeds from 8 plants - not a good investment.
I'll definitely grow more greens next year, we've been eating them on a daily basis and I've been able to stock up the freezer with a tonne of greens which I hope will last, but realistically-with the amount of greens we eat - will run out by Christmas. I'll also branch out from cherry tomatoes and go to romas - and lots of them - so we can make sauce. I'm also going to start onions and garlic this fall, because I definitely would have used them if I had them but missed the boat on that this past year.
Enough of that - hopefull the above post will keep me in line when spring rolls around and I start getting garden fever. With all the freezing and canning I've been doing we haven't really been all that exciting this August. Hence the lack of posts...again. We went to our friends wedding mid-August, which was at Willowbank and was thus incredibly beautiful, really capitalizing on the historic ambiance. Other than that we've been pretty boring. Here are some links to my favourite things these days.
--Awesome NY times article:
"That's Not Trash,That's Dinner" on using all the parts of a plant - I totally want to make the
peach leaf apertif they link to on David Lebovitz's blog.
--Two words:
Aunt Peaches!!!!! Love her.
--
Denim rag rugs. I'm in the process of making one right now. I'll post about it when I'm done. I want to make one like Martha's
here, too.
--I'm starting to nest again. Loving these DIY sites:
michelemademe,
craftgossip,
papernstitchblog, and
ohcrafts.
--I've lost quite a few pounds by running (I posted a link on that
before) but I've also been alternating between
Tracy Anderson workouts (the one thing I'll thank Gwyneth Paltrow for) also I just do workouts of hers I find on youtube and
isometric workouts for extra strength training.
-- Roasted Cherry Tomatoes - I dare you to make
these and not become addicted!
Hope that your harvest is as good as mine! Enjoy those extra blankets!
