It’s been tough keeping up with the garden work recently after getting sick twice in a week and a half. I didn’t even know that was possible! Even though the weather has cooled down significantly, meaning that growth and ripening have slowed some as well, this is also the time of year that both warm- and cool-season crops are coming in strong, hence our association with fall as harvest season. So even with slightly less summer crops to harvest, we’re still getting more than enough to eat, donate, and save for the winter.
With the cooling temperatures, however, it’s officially the end (or near end) to canning for the season. We have been canning multiple times a week for most of the summer and our pantry is almost entirely filled with home-preserved jars. And, honestly, I’ve reached the point where I am going to go crazy if I have to stand over a giant pot of boiling water one more time! But in more practical terms, the summer crops are beginning to wane and the fall crops that are coming in are able to grow into cold and even freezing conditions, like kale, or can be stored for a significant period in refrigeration, think carrots, making canning less essential. With the extra time and energy this has freed up, I’ve been able to really ramp up cooking some new and exciting dinners. Our favorite last week was an excellent eggplant and walnut pesto pasta recipe that you can find here. It is a perfect, easy way to use up both excess eggplant and those oven-dried cherry tomatoes I posted about earlier, which we substituted for the sun-dried tomatoes. And I would recommend adding slightly more eggplant and tomatoes than are called for.
Otherwise, I’ve been continuing to work on the final plantings of fall crops. Spinach, salad mix, and arugula all went in this past week and the shelling pea plants, growing ever bigger, were more than ready for the trellis I finally put in yesterday. Most exciting, Mike got the rain barrel installed over the weekend (while I drank tea, watched TV, and coughed!). Look for a post on that to come soon and keep your fingers crossed for some rain so we can try it out!
Leave a Reply