It’s fall. The date says so. The weather says so. The smell of my neighbors wood burning stove says so. We suffered through an abnormally hot September, but last week the glorious season of autumn began. I’d like to say that as the days are growing colder I am finished with the garden and settling in for a snug winter, but I’m not. Every day something has to be harvested and prepared and stored or I will end up losing a lot of food when the frost comes my way. Combine the race to harvest with my being eight months pregnant and still working and I am far too pooped (lazy) to write a blog at the end of the day, hence the lack of Pilver.
Here I am going to show you a picture of some of the things I have stored, canned, etc. thus far. It really is pretty amazing to think that all of these things, except a few which I picked out of the forest, came from my yard. It’ll be even more amazing if I can harvest the whole garden before winter.
I am going to do my best at naming all this stuff. From the left: Tomatoes, Pickled Green Beans, Chick Peas, White Beans, Tomato Sauce, Bing Cherry Jam, Huckleberry Jam, Peach Preserves, Pickled Cucumbers, Service Berry Jam, Rhubarb Apple Pie Filling, Apricot Jam, Cherry/Peach Syrup, Apricots, Elderberry Jam, Dried Apricots, Canned Pumpkin, Bottom Row: Garlic, Eggs, Blue Potatoes, (we also have red, russet, yellow, and white) Shallots, Thai Chili Peppers, Sunflower Seeds, Bell Pepper, White Onions (we also have red and Yellow), Cayenne Peppers, Salad Cucumber, Corn on the Cob…whew!
There’s more stuff, not in the picture. I got too lazy to grab it all. This season was a learning process. Though I have tons of food stored, I also lost plenty. Only about twenty percent of the corn matured properly. Most of the melons never got larger than a baseball. The summer squash and zucchini produced faster than I could deal with and most ended up as chicken feed. And, I am not sure the peanuts grew at all.
Overall, I give myself a 7 for gardening this year. Next year I expect to improve to a solid 7 1/2 🙂
The Pilver 
Pretty impressive haul! I miss getting fresh produce out of my dad’s garden, I’ve never had the patience to do one on my own. I’ve toyed with doing a small container garden but haven’t done it (yet).
Mystie had an awesome container garden this year. Do you have a yard?
I don’t really have a yard but I do have a patio that get’s a lot of sun. Michelle planted some stuff out there before she was hospitalized that did pretty well, I just didn’t have the oomph to do it this year.
My goal for next year is to at least get seeds started. This year my seed packets remain in my bathroom drawer where I hid them so my husband wouldn’t see that I bought the expensive brand name ones.
Your husband doesn’t use the bathroom drawer? Or you have a big enough bathroom to not have to share a drawer? If it’s the latter, I am jealous 🙂
Good lord. That’s it, in case any kind of apocalyptic scenario does happen and I need to camp out somewhere with a generator, some guns and a survival plan, I know where I’m going. You guys aren’t messing around.
You’ve got vegetables I’ve never even heard of. Blue potatoes? Service berry? Elderberry?
Those berries are wild, we don’t actually plant them. Neither are super sweet, so they make good wine. I’m not patient enough for wine so I made jam.
Very nice! Looks like you’ve been very busy!
Thanks!