After a long, hot summer in which we (and our garden) achieved a kind of sweltering torpor with all slowing seriously, the sunny streak slammed shut and Fall began to exert it's inevitable effects.
That means one thing - get active on all manner of harvest activities. After weeks of doing not much except watering a lot, a whole bunch of things needed to be done at once.
We harvested great bunches of basil, and made pesto with most of it. Instead of pine nuts we used walnuts for one batch, and sunflower seeds for another.
The first batch I put in plastic ice cube trays, but had problems getting the pesto cubes out after they were frozen. The next batch we made a little stiffer, with more basil, then froze it on a cookie tray.
I wanted to call them basil balls, put pesto pebbles is a more appropriate description.
Instead of preserving tomatoes and cucumbers, we have been trying to eat them all fresh. What abundance! It is hard to keep up.
Not something we are used to when we buy them at the grocery store when rationing is more likely.
And the taste of just picked tomatoes and cucumbers is simply a wonder of nature. We have had them every which way, and especially like them together in a bulgur salad.
Alas, despite our best efforts, we just couldn't keep up to the cucumber patch. It outpaced our stomachs, so we canned pickles and relish.
A lot of what we grew this year was stunted by drought, and our purple potatoes were no different. There were many potatoes, but they were disappointingly small.
Our neighbour's six year old helped me harvest in the potato patch one day. We laughed because far too many of the potatoes we were digging up were the same size as peas.
We decided to call them "pea-tatoes" and giggled together, enjoying our silly gardening moment. Then we played marbles with a few on the grass before adding them to our slowly growing pile of peewees.
Our harvest activities have been very satisfying and busy. They will continue for the next few weeks since we are not done yet, and we are trying our hand at second crops of peas and kale.
But we are already happy with what we have been able to grow and preserve this year.
Soon Fall will be here, and it will be time to plant our garlic and think of Spring once again as the cycle goes on. And on, and on, and on...
Happy almost Fall. May your harvest be hearty.
Or,
Happy almost Spring. May your sowing be sublime.
Well, sorry about the drought. But, it appears you had abundance but not what was expected. Those were certainly small pea-tatoes.
ReplyDeleteYou had me thinking back nostalgically to pictures of my three girls and myself sitting around the kitchen table or island quartering and coring laundry baskets filled with apples and packing them into 4-litre ice cream pails for the freezer. Smiling to myself knowing there will be no need to make dinner because they willl have been gorging on apple pieces as we work. Always the same scenario upon return from a day of U-picking strawberries earlier in the season. There were times we didn't get many peas because they would munch so many straight off the plant we were lucky to get enough for a family meal or two. Oh, how they used to grumble and moan - and, oh how they get all misty-eyed and wistful when our family conversations go back there. Take joy in your harvest. And thank you Gregg for the lovely meander down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous harvest! It's especially lovely harvesting with children next to you- their delight in finding fresh edibles is gorgeous :)
ReplyDeleteI'll bet your pea-tatoes might taste pretty nice boiled or baked whole and sprinkled with some olive oil and salt? YUM. And I'm jealous at all your lovely preserving. I hope our garden is as fruitful this summer :)