Late Season Harvests

Heirloom organic Golden Bantam corn

These assorted peppers went into salsa

Cool, cloudy, August weather reminded me so much of an Indiana corn roast, we decided to do just that! It was tradition at my Acadian clan reunions. They welded an iron grate above a water reservoir inside a large metal trash barrel, which would be set over a fire, perfect for steaming-roasting 12 dozen ears of corn. We don't have the metal barrel, but a grill set over hardwood coals will work just as well. The most essential part we have: big, beautiful ears of dark yellow heirloom Golden Bantam corn. This tried-and-true sweet corn dating from 1902 holds plenty of true corny flavor though a little bit starchy to our taste. It roasts fragrant and richly golden.

Eggplant, a Mediterranean staple, ripen beautifully

To date, we've harvested and processed 10 bushels of tomatoes, crocked nearly 1,000 pickles, and even tried pickled watermelon rinds. We've made enough salsa and canned enough beans to last more than a year. We made jam out of our late-season red raspberries, and we'll need to do something with a plentiful crop of garden huckleberries. Indian-colored popcorn is silking out now for an October harvest, and green pumpkins have started to change to orange. Apples, peaches, and figs will be coming soon.

Rattlesnake heirloom watermelon swelling to 40 lbs

Drying bean fence (left) uses space behind the barn

Golden Nugget tomatoes

Heirloom Golden Bantam corn

Rainy day harvest

Happy Summer Solstice 2014

'Gold Nugget' tomatoes ripe on June 12

Beets to add some color

Welcome first day of summer 2014! Summer solstice, known in ancient time as Midsummer and in the Christian era as John the Baptist’s birthday (six months before Christmas), has been celebrated for all of recorded human history; sources say we feel significantly happier at this time of year, most likely due to lengthening daylight hours.¹ Farmers and homesteaders, always tied to cycles, know that summer means extra work and long days. As we’ve sown diligently, we reap the firstfruits of an abundant harvest. Blessings abound; there is much for which to give thanks.

White garlic (not elephant)

It’s time to pull canning jars out of storage and gather food in the harvest (the homesteader’s version of Solomon’s proverb). We welcomed tomatoes almost a month early this year thanks to different heirloom varieties.  Summer isn’t summer without a batch of our overnight refrigerator dill pickles; I host a much-anticipated pickle party in the work office each June.

Dill heads are an ingredient for great
pickles; picked an average
of 28 cukes per day!

We feel reward, seeing a plate of roast chicken and a variety of fruits and vegetables, realizing we grew everything here. Taking Solomon’s advice in time of abundance, we ladle produce into canning jars for a leaner time; maybe it will remind us of summer sunshine and rain when we open these jars. Who needs an excuse to celebrate when there’s sweet corn, blueberry pie, kids running through the sprinkler, and fireflies at dusk.

Ecclesiastes 5:18 Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.

Red and black raspberries, and blackberries; these went into triple-berry jam

White onions, many the size of softballs, drying in the barn

Sweet corn silked out June 15; it will be ready by the 4th of July

¹Message me for citation

September 3, 2012

Dozens of pumpkins, small and large, are now on display in our front yard.

August 31st's Blue Moon.

Harvest home.  The first of September (the start of meteorological autumn) dawned clear and golden after the previous night's Blue Moon.  Despite the subtle change of season, afternoon temperatures have crept back up to the low 90's F, while mornings are cool and dewy.  If the coming winter brings as many snows as we had fogs in August, we might see 5 winter weather advisories (this little bit of folklore will be interesting to test this year, knowing the Farmer's Almanac forecast for a colder and wetter than normal winter).

Warm, sunny days are great for our favorite harvest of the year: pumpkins!  We filled the wheelbarrow several times making trips from the pumpkin patch to our front yard where dozens of the orange fruits sit on display until we are ready to use them in culinary treats.  According to research on the topic, pumpkin seeds are more nutritious than the fruit's meaty orange flesh, but because of its low-calorie value and high concentration of vitamins like beta-carotene, this flavorful food is an all-around winner.  Our largest pumpkin (a 'Prizewinner' variety) is still ripening on the vine and will be moved up in a few weeks.

This funny-looking gourd (center) is actually
a winter squash of the 'Cucurbita moschata' family.

Our local apple harvest has finished; our fourth-year trees are still juveniles with many hopeful years of bigger and more abundant harvests.  'Heritage' red raspberries are producing heavily.  Tomato vines and pepper plants are still setting fruit, and we are pulling more carrots to supplement meals as just about everything else has finished.  Green beans on the bush now are being saved for seed.

Happy Labor Day y'all!

Fouth-year apple tree well branched and finished with harvest,
catches some morning rays in front of the pumpkin patch.

August 20, 2012

'New England Pie' pumpkins curing in the barn.

Grass mow is thick, mornings are dawning cooler, and evidence of the changing season is seen in fruits of harvest.  Look closely, and there is even some early leaf color in the dogwoods.  Our apple trees have let us know that their fruit is ripe and ready to be tasted.  One of those late-evening walks out to the back of our property, so busy with dragonflies and jumping locust, came to a stop when we noticed several red apples had fallen to the ground.  Their fragrance was spicy-sweet, and a bite confirmed the fruit was dead-ripe.  We sprayed these trees until the end of June with a home orchard insecticide/fungicide and then left them alone to get washed in July rain.  Insects have not bothered them in the last half of the season.

A perfect 'Winesap' apple paired with ripe figs all from our orchard.

We are seeing more fruits than vegetables as summer winds down slowly but inevitably to the autumn, our favorite season of year.  We did harvest a bushel basket of tomatoes, imperfect, but tasty enough paired with peppers and onions for salsa.  A fall crop of red raspberries is producing heavily, reminding us of a seemingly long-gone June berry season.  We picked the last of our melons and mowed the patch to the ground.

Thursday morning dawned at 58 degrees F at our elevation.  Refreshing!  Sunflowers and pumpkins are a cheery pair as we begin to think about the impending garden clean-up.  If you did not have enough milk jug covers last spring, start saving them now to cover tender transplants that will be set in the garden in early September.  We need to begin thinking of cutting down our yellowing corn patch to make room for the fall and winter garden.

A cheery sunflower bows out as summer 2012 comes to a close.