Apples, garlic, carrots

We're headed into harvest season so I have called out reinforcements. Jessica was up the ladder to pick the early apple tree.

We ended up with 60 or 70 pounds of apples and most were of good size.

A bunch went into crisps that are either in the freezer or in my belly.

I dried 18 apples in the dehydrator, filling five one-litre jars.

I then sauced about seven litres full. We'll do more saucing and some apple butter with the second tree after a frost.

Watching the weather. we've also started doing some selective harvesting. We pulled in the ripest half of the cantaloupe harvest. The rest need more time on the vine.

We also culled about a third of the tomatoes. There are still lots on the plants but this will be plenty if we get an unexpected frost.

 

I harvested a bed of potatoes during the week then amended the soil and graded it for garlic next year.

 

Jess got pressed into some stoop labour to get sixty cloves in before the rain last night.

Jenn has been helping me dig carrots.

The carrots are crazy-big this year.

Jenn also helped me pull down the pea trellis on the inside of our fence and till the soil a bit. On the outside, I cut a small new bed for next year to run some scarlet runner beans up the outside.

Hopefully, we'll get a long enough fall that I can get ahead on some of the processing before we have to pull the tender stuff. 

Beans, cantaloupes, potatoes, and cucumber

Things are starting to ripen in the yard so we've started to do some harvesting. The heat has meant the scarlet runner beans are starting to dry on the vine so I cut off everything that looked dry, shelled them, and have been letting them air dry for storage. Still lots of harvest on the plants, though.

I also culled about 25% of the tomatoes (the ones sitting on the ground) and brought them in. Hopefully this will free up some energy for the plants to open the rest on the vine.

The number and size of the remaining tomatoes are impressive.

We also harvested the first of the cantaloupes. It could have been a touch riper but it was definitely cantaloupe. There are 10 more on the vine and I think we have a good chance of getting 8 to maturity.

On the south fence, we planted about 70 feet of raspberries last year. They are filling in nicely. To plug the gaps, we interplanted potatoes this year. I pulled the plants the grew and managed to get three gallons of small spuds (it was dry this year).

I turned a bunch into parmesan-crusted potatoes for dinner on Saturday.

I was hoping to bake a zuchinni loaf this weekend to freeze for winter. We harvested one of the bigger plants but it turns out that it identifies more as a cucumber.

So we pivoted to carrot cake and then apple cake.

The weather looks good so we're letting the garden run a bit long this fall. I have a bunch of potatoes I'd like to dig this week so I can flip the bed to garlic for next year and plant. We'll also have to have a come to Jesus moment with the carrots, apples, and the tomatoes but the carrots and apples can wait until after there is a good frost.