End of season wrap-up

Alright, with the garden basically to bed for the year, I now have time to catch up on posts for the past month!

We spent a fair bit of time filling buckets with horse manure at the equine centre and then bringing it home and replenishing the garden beds. You can see the steam coming off the pile in the photo below. Jenn and Jess were troopers. We made a lot of trips.

We had good results, including this crazy cucumber.

The cantaloupes were a success (after years of trying) and I'm keen to try a different melon next year. Maybe also a corn field out front.

We had a pretty good harvest of pumpkins (which were also fun to grow). We have half a dozen jack-o-lanterns this year and maybe a dozen of the smaller baking pumpkins. We'll do another pumpkin patch next year in a slightly sunnier spot.

The frost held off until very late October so we had to harvest the second apple tree before it frosted. I made a lot of apple sauce and it had a very nice pink hue to it. The apples were also great eating fresh.

We had a lot of fires this autumn as I burned up twigs, branches, and old tax records and boxes.

Jess and Jenn harvested the carrots. Some were as big around as her wrist.

We also broke the banking converted two in-ground beds at the back into slightly raised beds. My plain is to put a wire arch between the beds (where Jess is standing) and grow vining plants (cucumbers, melons, etc) so the fruits hang down under the arch and are off the ground. The rest of the beds can be hotter veggies (papers, basil).

The tomatoes went on and on and I finally just had to cut the plants down so we could get on with prepping for next year. We're still eating tomatoes and have given pounds and pounds away. More red tomatoes next year, I think.

I dried a bunch of the smaller tomatoes and they are a nice snack. I also tried drying pineapple, which was a big hit.

I still have some berries to jam but did two batches of raspberry and one small batch of haskaps. Very tasty and looking forward to bigger harvests next season. We ended the year but putting a couple of hundred new bulbs in at the front for some early spring colour.

Overall, this was a great year. The heat was great for the plants but meant the water bill was huge. I finally broke down and bought a fan-shaped sprinkler for the front bed. There is still no snow so I will continue to putter outside. The leaf rake calls!