Early harvest

We have been pretty busy harvesting the past few weeks. The potato bed is still going great guns, which is a much longer growing season than usual.

We have harvested a few plants that have packed in it and they have yielded spuds of a good size.

I also harvested some beats that were growing in the lawn (seed must have failed out of my pocket)?

We're having some late-season luck with peppers, both hot and bell. I think the plants are finally setting fruit now that the scorching summer heat has passed.

The success story of the year continues to be basil. We've given away gallons of leaves and I've made everything I can think of, including infusing a bunch into some olive oil.

The early apple tree has even harvested. We had good crop and they were super tasty this year (with hint of peach), perhaps because of the heat?

Jess turned a bunch into rings and dried them. We still have the later tree to get to. They are just turning nice red colour.

We also have a bunch of drying beans, carrots, and potatoes to harvest. But they can wait a few weeks while we enjoy a nice autumn.

Fire pit upgrade

The last piece of the backyard that we needed to restore post-garage build was the fire pit. I did the prep this summer but waited until Jess returned from Forest Ranger camp to lay the stones.

She did a pretty good job (not her first time!) and we also fixed a few places in the front walk where ants caused a bit of a slump.

Amazingly, we had enough sand (I never buy enough sand) to lock everything in place.

The lawn needs some TLC but will eventually grow in. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with this outcome.

We've had a few fires to burn up the hedge clippings from this spring and now pretty much have the area behind the garage cleaned up.

I'll have a separate post about some harvesting later this week.

Apples, carrots, basil, and beans

So much watering... this heat wave has meant I've been out almost every night this summer watering. Which had cut into my blogging time. Anyhow...

The tomatoes are starting to ripen. It hasn't been a good year for them in my yard (despite the heat). I think the crazy heat stunted blossoming (same issue with peppers). I also wonder if the soil where they are planted is played out and needs amendment. A few of the cherry tomatoes are doing alright, though.

Things are better in the carrot bed and I have started thinning. These are yellowstone carrots, which get quite big if they have the space. Not super sweet, but they store okay. We also got third harvest of peas off.

We had to pick the early apple tree early to reduce the load on the branches. There are still plenty of apples on the tree nut but it is looking happier with 50 lbs less weight.

The real story of the summer has been the basil plants, which continue to thrive. I trimmed the top third off this weekend and packed two ice cream pails.

This turned onto a litre and half of pesto, which I'm in the process of freezing in smaller pucks. I'm also going to try an infuse some oil with basil in a week or two (since we've dried and frozen and eaten a lot already).

The green beans are doing well and i'm freezing them. We also have some bush beans that are meant for drying (basically small kidney beans). These are really going hard so we should have a good crop.

Jessica is home from her summer job on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to some help laying brick for the fire pit and also cleaning up the back corner of the yard.

 

Berries, peas and scapes

We're back from a short vacation and berry season has begun. I thought the raspberries would be a washout this year because of the insane heat wave. The crop is diminished and the berries are smaller. But there are some to put on top of ice cream.

I've also been picking saskatoons and have frozen about gallon for baking in the winter.

We harvested most of the first sowing of peas this week. Some we ate fresh and the rest I blanched and froze. I did a second sowing late in the year (after the zucchini didn't come up) so we might get a second crop in mid-August. Fortunately, the heat has diminished some so I'm not spending an hour a day watering.

It was also garlic scape time. Sorry the picture is blurry. I gave a lot of these away to friends. We flash blanched about 20 and then blended them into some pesto were were making. This has been tasty in top of pasta. I may also make pizza with it.

The next few weeks look a little slower. I'm weeding a lot, trying to get he tomatoes to come around, and thinning out the carrots. Ive also been doing bunch of succession planting with lettuce and other short-season crops.

Drying herbs

The heat wave has continued this week (>+30C every day), with heavy daily waterings being necessary. The pansies in the front just finally gave up and the strawberry crop cooked on the vine. Other plants are really loving the eat, including the basil. I've never had basil this good!

I culled about 25% of each plant the other day and then hauled out the new food dehydrator. This all cooked down to a large spice jar, which should be almost a year's worth of basil. The next cutting will go into some pesto.

I also did a cull of the mint and oregano and dried enough for next year. I'm going to try dehydrating pineapple this afternoon.

The tomatoes are starting to show some fruit (I think this are Roma). No fruit on the pepper plants yet but they are growing really well. I may try them in a raised bed next year.

I've done some additional seeding (lettuce and such) where plants have either given up or been harvested. With last nights rain and milder temperatures, I'm hopeful this lettuce will last a bit longer before bolting. the garlic scapes are also almost read to harvest.

Basil, peas, poppies and daylilies

This past week has been busy with high school graduation and then getting Jess ready to head off to Junior Forest Ranger camp in High Level for the summer. The yard has been going along nicely now that the fence is in and things are returning to normal.

We have, however, been stuck in one of the longest and hottest heat waves that I can recall. This is day seven, I think, of it being really stupid hot.

This has meant hours of watering in the yard. So far, only the pansies have completely given up. Everything else, we've managed to keep alive.

Some plants are actually doing quite well. The pea vines are now over six feet tall on the south side of the garage and I had to starting tying them up because the stems were starting to break in the wind.

The poppies and daylilies have also started blooming. There is quite a bit of weeding to do but it is too hot to work in the yard after about 9 am and it has not really been cooling down until after midnight. I'm hopeful for some rain tonight and then a fall to more seasons temperatures. This morning it was only 26 and that felt incredibly cool.

The basil has been loving the heat. These were a gift from friends and I thought I'd pooched them when I transplanted. They have fully recovered and are huge. The leaf in the centre of the picture below is the size of two twoonies!

I'm hopeful the temperatures will drop next week and I can get out the dehydrator and get to the herbs. We should also have garlic scapes shortly. I've also done a couple of late sowings of lettuce and carrots. Im not sure the carrots will mature but, maybe, with a hot summer and a late autumn.

Peonies, bees, peas and spinach

It has been a very busy busy couple of weeks, mostly occupied with weeding and watering in the yard. 

The peonies have started to bloom, which is lovely. And the bees have been in them and the chives non-stop.

The peas have been jumping and this morning were as tall as the top of the trellis (which is 5 feet). They are starting to set pods, with the south facing peas being about two weeks ahead of the west facing ones.

The potatoes are flowering and have been hoed up as best I can. It has been very warm so I'm hopeful we'll have a good crop this year. The squash seeds have germinated, with the butter nut being way more successful than the zucchini.

The harvested the spinach out front and re-seeded some lettuce.

The spinach tasted great in smoothies. I have been fighting quite a battle with cut worms this spring on the west-most lettuce bed. I used to see a few a year and I was digging up three or more a day for awhile.

The irises are also blooming our front. It looks like the raspberries are beginning to take on the south fence. I've been watering them and hoping for the best.

If I get ambitious this weekend, I will try out the new food dehydrator and do some of the mint, oregano, and maybe wild onions that are coming up on the side. Next week is supposed to be a stretch of +30 or more weather.