Thanks to the dry August, I think autumn has decided it’s time to make an appearance! In the last three days we finally had a storm track right over us and we ended up with almost 2″ of rain! The grass will be happy. We’ve been able to keep the few plants left in the garden watered, but I think most of the plants were just ready to get on with fall weather.
Here’s where we stand in the garden today:
The last planting of radishes. This is the raised planter, but somehow some munching insect took bites out of the radish leaves. I probably have two dozen radishes in the refrigerator so I’m set for a while.The strawberry plants keep trying, but really no actual strawberries made it. the yellow/orange cherry tomatoes have finally reached their limit…so did I! Most of the tomatoes have split and rotted, so that plant will be dispatched shortly. I still have 2-3 dozen in the refrigerator so I’m good for now.These are the planters that had the shell beans, the cucumbers and Delicata squash. Everything was removed and cleaned up two weeks ago.The shelled beans, from left to right: Painted Pony beans, Cranberry beans, a baking bean and Calypso beans.The chick peas were cute and tiny and a complete pain in the neck to shell! I ended up with several cups of tiny peas. Not sure if they’ll cook up into anything worth eating. Very disappointing. Who knew there were two varieties of chickpeas. The ones on the right are the ones I’m familiar with.I finally solved my dilemma of wanting chickpeas by ordering some online from the Palouse Co. in Washington. I’m determined to try making hummus sometime.The main garden is pretty empty now, with just carrots to harvest. We’ll dig them up as we need them. Last year we dug up the last of the carrots for Christmas dinner!Carrots are looking good!The lavender looks pretty good and will probably be fine for any wandering bees until the first frost.I had already picked the lavender that I wanted to dry and put it in a paper bag. I pulled it out to see how it was doing. It needs a little more time so I laid the bunch out on a tray and will let it continue to dry.The Echinacea flowers are letting me know that fall is coming…they are already looking pretty sad!
As you can see, Bert tidies up the garden as things finish so the final clean up doesn’t take too long. I’m ready to put all the canning supplies away for now. All I have to do is look at my shelf of canned foods to see how the summer went…pizza sauce, 4-bean salad and pickle relish. The memories of meals with fresh green beans, tomatoes, salads with fresh lettuce and radishes are there too! So that was our garden for 2022! Thanks for sharing the journey!
