Grace in the 'Hood–Life on an Urban Homestead

Where did Summer Go?

Wow–summer came and went in a blur! Here we are almost at the end of September, and our harvest–with the notable exception of raspberries–is winding down. We still have greens that will be available into October, maybe even November. I was thrilled to see that the late summer cucumber I planted has yielded three cucumbers so far, with more coming. Merciless pruning of the tomatoes–ridding them of the leaves that contain whatever was attacking them, seems to have turned them around, though it’s hard to say how many more tomatoes we’ll get as the weather cools. There are significant blossoms and some new fruit setting, so even if we end up with a number of green tomatoes that we can bring in later and ripen inside, we’ll have that many more tomatoes for canning.

We have also been benefiting from the production of the chickens that we got earlier this summer. The eggs are great–so much better than the eggs from the grocery, because they are so fresh!

We’ve had over 150 pounds of honey so far, and we think we’ll be harvesting a little more. It is lovely–great on the toast made from the yellow squash bread that I expect to make all winter after freezing LOTS of grated squash from the massive production we had this summer.

It’s almost time to begin putting in bulbs and probably a couple of dwarf fruit trees. I’ll also be putting down new beds. We’ll divide some of the plants from our backyard garden to move and give away, and we’ll move more day lilies down to our daylily bed. The mums that never got very big before are growing massive in the space where we’ve put them–threatening to overtake several other plants! Oh, and yes–we plan to move some roses that need better light to places where they will get it.

Hoping for a few more green beans from what I planted in August. It’s looking pretty good, but if it gets very cold early, we’ll lose them. We did get some at the farmer’s market to freeze, because we really appreciated having our own last winter–much better than store-bought frozen. I think we’ll have more broccoli as well, from the new plants we planted in early August.

All in all, it’s been a good year for the garden.

We have taken advantage of good buys on things we aren’t growing when we’ve found them. I bought a box of plums for $3 (!) a few weeks ago, and made two batches of wonderful jam, some spiced cold soup, and a pie. Not sure I’d do the pie again, but the soup was delicious! I just bought a box of apples and will be making applesauce today.

OK–I think I’d better get moving on the apples and the beans–then down to the garden to work on the compost and the beds. It’s a good day to be outside–70s and beautiful, lovely breeze.

Happy autumn!

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