The last of the beautiful weather has come and gone. The rain and blustery Autumn winds have started. Here's some of our latest photos and projects as the late summer turns into fall....
"Oh, you beautiful squash, you great big beautiful squash!" Finally, a year with an acorn squash harvest! We just love sprinkling it with curry and baking it with cheese! These are some of the many squashes our garden produced this year. We are happy to know we will be well supplied with garden goodies over the winter:)
So many cucumbers! A great year for 0 mile diet Greek salads and Tzatziki dip! And cucumber slices in Jason's lunch pack!
We planted our winter greens in August. Here they are in September growing beautifully. They are much bigger now and we are enjoying some fresh baby greens even now as the cold has crept in.
Our first batch of carrots (planted back in the early spring, ~March) didn't grow very well. We wonder if the seed rotted due to the wet and cold weather we had. So we planted a second batch after we harvested the garlic in July - and what do you know...there were carrots!
Love this picture! Carrot love! That's for sure. Carrot love our bellies :)
So we had all this elephant garlic to use up - we left it in the ground far past harvest date - the skins had weathered away and they needed to be eaten or processed right away. So I made roasted garlic soup and learned that even though mild in taste (as elephant garlic is not true garlic, it is a leek), too many cloves equal a deadly concoction! More like sulphur soup! Sadly, we had to compost it:(
Jason and our friend Grant had a couple days in September to give the root cellar some much overdue love.
They managed to get the walls done to the height planned for! Yeah! No landslides this wet season over the walls this year!
PARSNIPS! So creamy, so tasty. I think I'm in love!
Our grapes were unreal this year - so we motivated ourselves to do something with them - as last year we left them for the birds. (We just didn't have the time to process them).
This is one of two harvest baskets full, I collected.
A friend lent me her juicer. It worked like a charm, and in no time at all...must get me one! The grapes made over 7 liters of grape juice - gave some away, froze some, drank the rest.
So many peppers this year! This bowl of peppers is from one plant alone. We've made several batches of very spicy salsa this year...now to figure out what to do with the rest...?
The bees were 'put to bed' for the winter, in a manner of speaking...because they don't sleep, they huddle.
Added some insulation to the super lid (fit nicely in). And cut insulation (styrofoam) to fit around the super itself. Then added a tarp to keep them dry. P.S. Added a couple popsicle sticks to lift the lid up slightly for air ventilation.... and the ladies can get in and out no problem through the bottom entrance only. Good night beautiful ladies, hope to see much of you in the spring! (Probably sooner than that though, as a varroa mite winter oxylic acid treatment is probably in order).
A bunch of bees shaken (in front of the hive) from the top super (to take it down to just the one for winter, for warmth and a better survival chance). Come on girls, wake up and get back into your hive. (They did of course:)
