Garden 2024 Update #13: A Garden & Kitchen Tour

It's hard to believe it's already September. The growing season always seems so short, and over way too soon.  While it's not quite over yet, it's coming quickly and the chore of "putting the garden to bed" has already started. 

Come join me on a walk through the garden & peek into the kitchen:

Mid August when the garden is most lush. 

I love the way it looks when food is spilling out of the raised beds the way the carrot tops are.

I've been working on beautifying (as much as possible) the inside of my wee cottage. 

As I always say, it was really nice of me to buy this hot tub for my cats. 😂

My 2nd to last Mars Madness Hibiscus flower this year. 

They cast such a gorgeous pop of color in the garden. 

Yet another contender in the "mutant tomato of the year" contest. 

All the green tomatoes are growing on a single stem that appears to have grown out of the red tomato. 

Terra Cotta Yarrow - orange blooms are new - they yellow out in about a week. 

Apparently the carrot heard about the mutant vegetable of the year contest. 

What you get when you leave your wee bunch of carrots in the box lid. 

Scarlet Runner Beans were late bloomers but look at 'em go now!

The grape vines are taking over. 

My Cherry Wine at 8 weeks.  It's fantastic! 🍷 Recipe is here.

Sometimes the harvest looks like this. 

New Fridge Pickle recipe I'm trying from here

The spear on the left is 1 day old. 

The one on the right, the more olive colored one, is a week old. 

Perfectly pickled & garlicy goodness. 

25-ish pounds of tomatoes 

A year's worth of ketchup (more or less) and 2 quarts of rich tomato juice.

I use Sarah's recipe here

The late summer clear up has begun. 

Out are the butternut squash (non-producers this year) and blackberries are now in their place. 

Clear up continues with the removal of the last of the vines on Cucumber Lane. 

This whole section is being planned for renovation for next spring. 

One of the last berry clusters this year.  

The bushes were HUGE procucers and I couldn't be happier.

Thanks for coming along on a tour through the garden & the peek into the kitchen. 

I hope you were encouraged or inspired in some by your visit today. 

Status Report: August 2024

Sitting: Inside with all the windows open and the AC off.  While I'm ever thankful for the air conditioning on those sweltering hot summer days, it's sure nice to be able to turn it off and just enjoy the fresh breeze coming in the windows. 

Been busy with: the garden always keeps me busy but my current (ongoing) project is beautifying the cottage space. When I had it built a few years ago the intention was to have it be dual purpose. A garden cottage to store all my garden supplies as well as guest cottage bunkie.  We did have a surprise guest for a week long stay a couple of years ago and I quickly turned it into a bunkie with an inflatable bed, night table, privacy curtains, lamp, fan & charging station. After seeing how cute it looked with a very rushed "hurry, turn that into a bunkie!" job, I'm even more excited to see how it will look once it's all done. There is much work to do from insulation, sheetrock, better lighting, additional shelving, building a small storage loft & probably 10 other things I haven't thought of yet, but it's a project I'm very pleased to be working on. I'm enjoying watching the YT channel Made by Mick while he renovates a storage area off the side of his house, turning it into a small apartment for his daughter. Getting lots of ideas on how to translate some of his techniques to what I'm aiming for in the cottage.  

Re-evaluating: the garden for next year.  Every year I dial it in just a little more.  I've had a lot of fun growing experimental items and I do dedicate a small space every year for that but I've toned that down the last couple of years to spend more time growing what grows well here, and what grows well for me. Also re-evaluating raised bed areas for spots that currently don't have them. For my piece of land, raised beds tend to produce much better results than in-ground planting so I'm planning on adding at least 4 more for next growing season. 

Feeling: Kind of sad that the growing season is coming to an end in a few short weeks. Technically, my growing season is from mid May through mid October, so there's roughly 7 weeks left, before we're looking at the first frost of the year.  Although there really isn't much time to be sad, since fall zips by faster than it should, and between mulching all the falling leaves for free garden bed mulch, there are roughly 32 million things to take care of to put the garden to bed for the winter.  My carrots are doing amazingly well this year and I've decided they'll be the last to harvest, after the first hard frost.  An old time farmer told me they're ten times sweeter if you leave them in the ground until then, so I'm taking that advice as Farmer Gospel. 😊

Looking forward to: The next round of canning!  On the list to finish out the summer will be zucchini bread jam, Cowboy Candy, and my world famous homemade ketchup.  Okay maybe not world famous but my kids & grandkids, in-laws & outlaws all love it, so, that's good enough for me. 

Well, that just about does it for this month's Status Report. 

Thanks for stopping by and checking in! 😊 I hope you have an incredible day.