2nd week of September 2008
It's September fruit season which means grapes, apples, peaches and pears are ripe on our farm. We picked several bushels of very nice Bartlett pears which are being quickly eaten or put in the dehydrator for winter snacks. Apples are also going into the dehydrator and baked into crisps. A friend graciously offered to help pick grapes and use her steamer to make juice for us - an offer I gladly accepted! Here she is with part of her morning picking. Many people ask if I can a lot of produce for the winter. I do some tomato products but to be honest I try to be in a hot kitchen as little as possible. I much prefer being outdoors so we've worked on doing more storage crops that will go to the root cellar or simply be left in the ground to dig throughout the winter. And while other gardeners are madly canning beans, tomatoes, pickles and the like, I am busy planting more lettuces and greens to go in the cold frames for fresh eating all winter long.
We are busy filling the cold frame areas with cold hardy greens like kale, Swiss chard, arugula, bok choy, spinach and more. Here our daughter is watering Winter Density lettuce seedlings we just planted. It has been good to start harvesting salad greens and radishes again after several weeks without them. Tonight's supper included a delightful salad of spinach, Buttercrunch lettuce and salad burnet topped with cucumbers, tomatoes and red peppers. As fall approaches, the cooler weather makes for very sweet and delicious salad greens plus the Kale and Swiss chard will lose their bite and become more mild again. I am also anticipating eating from our crop of fall peas which are growing nicely and should bloom soon. They are never as abundant as the spring crop but still a very tasty treat for the end of the season.
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