The harvest basket is over flowing on our homestead – finally! Squash is meandering through every open corner of the garden. Juniper is still finding ripe strawberries from our everbearing plants that carpet the planting areas. Bees are humming from one echinacea flower head to another. This is the homestead I have been dreaming of since we first set eyes on this home.
Late summer garden
I was hoping the garden would “pop” a little earlier this summer, but alas our poor soil delayed a lot of growth. We still got decent harvests starting late spring through early summer – lots of berries, greens, onions and other cooler crops. I’m eager for late fall to set in so we can lay down heaps of compost to build up the soil quality. We will top if off with fresh wood chips for weed suppression and water retention.
Beets inter-planted between eggplants, heavy with fruit
The hot season crops are in full swing. We are getting lots of summer squash, including these fun white pitty-pans. Our heirloom tomatoes are producing giants! Eggplants and peppers are ready to pick. And I’m hoping our many winter squashes and pumpkins ripen before the first frost.
Finally! Tomatoes!
We have plenty of other goodies to stuff our harvest basket with: our second planting of lettuces, beet roots and greens, swiss chard and broccoli. For now we are eating it all fresh, but it’s time to start preserving the excess. I am enjoying the edible jungle while it lasts!
Evening harvest basket: cherry tomatoes, heirloom slicer tomatoes, beet greens and a white pitty pan summer squash
It’s hard to think about growing even more produce when we are already up to our eyeballs with harvesting. But we are overdue for planting the winter garden, which is our big holiday weekend project: carrots, lettuces, arugula, fava beans, kale, garlic, shallots and more. Tell me about your big weekend projects in the comments below!
Oh wow, I love how your garden is set up with the winding pathways. Ours is such a basic square of dirt and crops. It works, but it’s not as pretty as yours! We’ve really enjoyed bringing in our harvest too and I’m looking forward to posting an update about it tomorrow. My husband has already made 4 jars of mango-peach salsa. I’m looking forward to the “regular” salsa when he makes that next!