Apples, potatoes, carrots and bulbs

Well, September got away on me, mostly because we were busy actually harvesting and processing what we grew this year.

Despite the wet, wet summer, the heat loving plants have started producing and I expect we'll get a few squash to add to the cucumbers and tomatoes we picked this week ahead of cooler temperatures.

We've had a pretty decent crop of root veggies. Most of the potatoes are now in and cured. I left some beets out to maybe get a frost. I also turned the rest of the basil into pesto and froze that.

I split the carrot harvest into those we'll eat fresh and a bunch that I blanched and froze. There are also a few left outside so we can maybe eat fresh carrots into November.

Jess rescued me from the apple nightmare. We got about 1500 off of the two trees. Half we gave away. The other half we ate or processed into sauce and pie.

This also gave me the impetus to clean up the preserves closet. I only ended up tossing three jars of ancient jelly (fire weed).

This week, Jess and I are planting some fresh bulbs in the front yard as well as next year's garlic crop. The problem we're grappling with is a nest of very angry wasps (think Tasmanian Devil swarms) in the daylilies that border the sidewalk. So we'll get half of what I wanted planted and I guess we're waiting for a hard frost to finish this job!

The rest of our work this fall is doing some bed reclamation from aggressive raspberries in the back.

Hopefully, we get enough time this fall for me to make some progress here.

So many apples

Harvest has begun to ramp way up! After a cold and wet summer, the heat of August is moving things along.

I was sure cucumber crop was a bust but suddenly, we have dozens of tiny cucs growing. Some are these small, ball-like ones. Others are these more traditional field cucumbers.

The plum trees are also starting to bear, albeit the crop is still pretty small as the trees are young.

The tomato plants are also beginning to provide a few to eat. 

There is also a large patch of sunflowers that I had nothing to do with planting.

The garlic finally dried enough that I could trim them up and then they returned to the garage for another few weeks of curing. I will probably plant next year's crop towardws mid-September.

We have been carefully thinning the carrots and this is paying dividends in terms of big-ass carrots at the end of the season. Mt hand span in 9 inches (thumb to pink) and most that we have harvested have been in this range.

Our early apple tree is loaded. I picked over 600 apples just standing on the ground. There ar eprobabky another 200 or so I can get with the ladder.

We have made pie filling, sauce, and multiple crisps. We've also given a couple of hundred apples away. The late tree is looking similarly loaded.

It got so crazy I had to go buy more jars!

I hope to dig some potatoes next week an start cleaning up some of the beds for the winter.

Beans, beans, garlic and berries

Wow, August went fast! We've had less rain this month but some stuff is still quite behind. Raspberry season has come to a close with a few gallons in the freezer and a lot eaten raw.

The raspberry inspector worked a lot of overtime this year.

We had a larger cherry crop this year as the tree matures and these are in the freezer awaiting winter baking. 

This week, I pulled the garlic out of the ground and got 110+ heads.

In order to cure them, I stuck them into this roll of chicken wire and then moved that into the very smelly garage.

The bees have been shy this year, but I did get a few nice shots.

I also harvested and froze a bunch of green beans. I'm hopeful we'll get a bunch more before the season is done.

Into the empty garlic beds went some leafy greens and some late peas. Maybe we have enough time for them to mature. I've also been thinning carrots and eyeing the very large crop of apples that are growing.

Garlic scape salt and more rain

The rainy weather had continued, with July being on pace to get another foot of water. This was the scene at the intersection north of us last night after we got almost 40mm in two hours.

The garden has struggled with all of the water and the lack of heat. Some stuff has done okay. It is, for example, garlic scape season.

I gave a bunch away this year and turned my share into garlic scape salt.

Basically, chopped scapes mixed with coarse salt and pureed into wet, green sand.

After an hour of desiccating in the oven on low with intermittent stirring, I ground up the result.

And voila, garlic scape salt. Tastes a lot like commercial garlic salt but more garlicy.

The raspberries are beginning to produce some and the saskatoons are also ready for picking. I'm eyeing up the pantry and how much jam I still have some last year.

 

We are seeing some nice flowers.

And, happily, the last of the potatoes have blossoms after I feared half my crop was lost after they just didn't come up for ever.

The peas are also about ready to pick (maybe tonight if it doesn't rain).

We;ve been having our deck replaced and are now far enough along that I re-attached the pea trellis and planted a late sowing of peas behind the potatoes.

I've also been eyeing the potentially huge apple harvest and trying to finish using up last year's apple pie filling and apple sauce. This morning I made a crisp.

I see I also have kale to harvest tonight if I can brave the mosquitoes. The last few days have had a little bit of heat and the basil and tomatoes seem to be appreciative as well as the cucumber and squash plants.

So much rain

Alright, this has been the rainiest June ever in Edmonton (26.5cm) and it is raining again today! This has had some impact on the garden!

There have been lots of opportunities for cool picture taking.

The ground, though, is sodden and plants are suffering.

The kale and potatoes are doing okay. Other root veggies (carrots, beets) are stalled and even the peas are way behind. The basil and squash all look like they are about to give up.

Some of the flowers are doing okay.

I've spent a lot of time indoors, to avoid the rain and plague of mosquitoes. I harvested some rhubarb and combined it with saskatoons from the freezer to make and can some saskatoon-rhubarb pie filling, which was delicious

I also baked some Christmas cakes, soaked them with whiskey and put them aside to age in a cool cupboard. The yard desperately needs weeding but what can you do?