Still Harvesting

No rest for the weary around here!  Our goal of year-round garden harvesting has been met and is every bit as rewarding, and exhausting, as I expected.

Living, working and eating according to the season is remarkably satisfying.  In the last couple of years especially I’ve spent much less time learning from books and much more on direct observing and experimenting.  

I’m thinking our next goal should be to throw the calendar and the clock out with the garbage. Show those Amish what a real Luddite looks like! HA! 🙂

This time of year the spiders tell me it’s a good thing I’ve got the cool season crops out already. Many of them were started indoors, then transferred outside under shade cloth which will remain until the heat breaks, fingers crossed we don’t get an early frost.  

I’ve just started harvesting the sweet potatoes, the luffa and peppers are going crazy, the radishes, volunteer cherry tomatoes and lettuces are finally happy again and I’m most excited for the mirliton squash (chayote) that is finally getting its first flowers.  This will (hopefully) be our first success with mirlitons following multiple failed attempts.  I love this squash, but it thrives in southern Louisiana mostly, because it needs a very long warm season, even longer than we get here.  I started these indoors in February, along with the turmeric, also a first for us this year.

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As soon as it cools down I’ll also be harvesting honey, lots of herbs for drying and pesto, along with foraged leaves and roots for teas— sassafras, beauty berry, sumac—and once we finally get some rain, it’ll be time for mushrooms.   

Hubby will be filling the freezer with lamb and pork and freshening our flock for spring lambs and a few to add to our growing herd of milking goats.

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Hibiscus in May, hibiscus today . … still not blooming because I got a late start.

The honey bees love the Thai basil and the native bees especially love the salvia and the sweet potato and luffa flowers.  We’ve decided next year to plant an entire row of luffa in the orchard just for the bees and pigs.

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Hope you can enjoy a moment of piglet playtime! Surely there will be time for a wee rest in late winter?