As a gardener, the most important outcome of the garden season is the harvest. That is what all the digging, weeding, planting, sowing and weeding is about; the harvest. I'm always amazed when I begin to fill bowl after bowl of vegetables from a picking - it's really gardening "nirvana."
So I decided to put together a post featuring some Instagram snapshots that captured this years harvest. It's a quick look at why we do what we do in the garden.
This past 2013 season was certainly no disappointment either. Besides the fact that we had so much rain and cool temps, we still managed to bring in haul after haul of garden produce.
Sure our peppers languished for the early part of the season, but September proved to be a great month with nice mild temperatures; more sun and less rain. All of a sudden our peppers really began putting on lots of fruit.
We have scores of them and mostly hot peppers at that. I'm not sure when I'm going to learn how to not plant SO many hot varieties. Yes, we love them hot, but we do have our limits.
By the way...if you ever want to learn how to eat hot peppers - start growing them and you'll soon find ways to use them. I never ate a hot pepper 20 years ago, now we have a slight addiction to them.
Sadly, our tomatoes didn't fare as well. They always suffer from Septoria Leaf Spot (a fungal disease which affects the plant) in our garden at home, but I usually still get a decent crop.
We did manage to get enough tomatoes to can this year, but many were under-ripe and very small. All the rain and cool temperatures wreaked havoc on those temperamental Mediterranean plants. It may not make the best sauce this year but at least it's our tomatoes with no added pesticides; thank you very much!
Despite a bleak outlook in the beginning, most everything did well and we had more than enough to eat, preserve and share. Which, I think, is really what it's all about. I really love the harvest, it makes me feel so wealthy and successful. I guess that's what it's supposed to do. :)
How was your harvest this year? Blessings!
Shared on these blog parties...Waste Not, Want Not Wednesdays
Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways Natural Living Link Up
Monday's Homestead Barn Hop
Everything is so beautiful! I love how brightly colored your harvest is. Too bad your tomatoes didn't do so well. It seems like occasionally certain things will just have an off year!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful bunch of veggies! I'm curious about what you do with all your squash? Do you bake and freeze it or can it?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this on Waste Not Want Not Wednesday, Nancy, I've pinned it :)
Thanks! My spag squash keeps well for 7 months. The butternut lasts for almost as long. The delicata we use up within 4 months...no canning or freezing - these squash are self- preserved and easy to cook up for a meal! :)
ReplyDeleteThat's great! I don't have a cold storage and I'd be afraid to keep any squash out in my warm apartment too long ;)
DeleteI keep ours in our house in our small utility room which is around 70+ degrees. I try to keep them in a single layer and rotate them once in a while. They would probably keep longer in a cool basement but I've not lost very many even in a warmer environment. The spag squash is a great keeper as long as there are no cuts or bad spots...I kept one until spring last year in the house! That's why I decided to grow more this year because they kept so well...
DeleteThat's really good to know, we actually keep our place at around 70F most of the winter (and wear extra socks ;) ). Perhaps I'll load up on squash this weekend at the farmers market while there's still some around! Thanks, Nancy :)
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