Harvest Time

Egads, 3 weeks since my last post. That's just wrong.

But, me thinks life is settling down enough to write far more regularly. I certainly have enough in my head to write!

So far, the weather has been on my side for veggie harvesting. I'm wanting to collapse from fatigue, but that means we'll have good eating this winter. Urban homesteading - at least sort of.

I have a chart - yes, I'm obsessive compulsive - of what I hope to get out of the garden and what I actually get. Once I reach the quota I hope for, I then start freezing for my sister - an apartment dweller. I also give to my aunt and uncle - disabled without a garden this year. And after all of them, comes the food pantry.

My string beans are just coming on - such is the short, late growing season of upstate NY. I just put 3 quarts and 1 pint in the freezer. Did you know you don't have to blanch string beans before you freeze them? Everyone I know was overjoyed! Anytime you don't have to blanche is a good thing!

I've put 14 pints of Swiss Chard in as well. This was my goal, so am happy I got there so quickly, but will probably need more since my beets aren't as good as I hoped. Such is life!

I've only gotten 3 pints of beets (to store) so far. Very disappointing. But, I still have my second planting to put in, and can hope for better with that.

Summer squash - 11 quarts. My goal is 12, but again, with the beets not performing as hoped, I'll store some more of them. I've also started my sister's stash. Oh - I have a hybrid! It's a volunteer from last year, and apparently comingled with a zucchini. Here's a picture of one of the little bastards. They taste wonderful!

Blueberries - Just over 4 gallons, which was the goal. Have started on my sister's and then will give whatever is left to my aunt and uncle. They have thrice the bushes we do and get half the yield. I'm not sure why, but they remain thankful that ours continue to perform so well. I'm actually considering moving some of their bushes to my property and let this be blueberry central.

Composting continues to do well. I'm sure I'll have more to write about on this subject at a later date, but not much for hte moment. I've had 8 hot piles, with 7 turned into 1 large cold pile. I have 1 that will be ready to for the cold pile in about 2 weeks, and 2 newly started hot piles that will be a month before their ready for the cold pile.

Hot composting is good, but research is showing it still doesn't kill the weed seeds, while cold composting does. So I'm doing a combination. I start them as hot piles - 1 cubic yard each, then restart them as hot when they become half volume, then move them to a cold bin, where they just sit and let worms and such do the work. There they'll stay until spring, at which point the top layer will be turned into a hot pile and the rest will be sieved and used throughout the yard. This should kill the seeds with little effort. Should. We'll see.

My tomato line is highly stressed. Next year, I'll be replacing the 2x4's with 4x4's in hopes of them handling the weight better. I'll take a picture and put in a separate post to show the strain. It's fascinating actually!

More musing later. This is merely an update.

L