Harvest season

white sage, red raspberry leaf, lemon verbena

I decided to spend an afternoon with the kids harvesting the last of our gracious garden's offerings before the first frost fell upon us. We found a few sweet potatoes, hidden among the wildly overgrown patch of herbs and edibles that cobbled together this year. Vivienne was delighted and cooked them to eat that very day. I gathered handfuls of herbs, and put them on a line to dry. We picked the very last of the basil and chopped it, added olive oil and froze it for future pesto. There are still quite a few unripe figs that I am eager to pick and hope that they are not lost to the cold weather. Remaining raspberries were nibbled up in a blink.

It is a time for appreciating the gifts of the earth, and thinking ahead to ideas for next year. I am eager to continue my expansion of the garden beds. Every year, I have been adding more herbs and edibles, slowing adding garden beds. There is so much more that I would like to plant for next year - more for the fall harvest -pumpkins, beets, winter squash, kale, pole beans, and corn to name a few.

borage, rose, calendula, lemon balm, stevia

pretty little borage flowers - perfect addition to our dinner salad

jasper's rainbow swiss chard harvest

wonderfully fragrant basil


vivienne's proud little sweet potato feast

Vivienne had fun carving pumpkins for herself and Jasper while Mia was at the farm, attending another stellar Friday homeschool enrichment day. Mia learned to make cordage from Poplar bark, and drill a stone with another rock to make a pendant with Natalie Bogwalker. She has learned about wild edibles, made an herbal first aid kit, and made earthen pottery in recent weeks.

We also were blessed with a huge amount of local apples. A neighbor of our friends' farm had picked up a 20 bushel load of apples that an orchard was unable to sell for slight blemishes from a recent hail storm. He intended to feed the load to the deer, but after seeing (and tasting) the beautiful apples, he decided to give away as many as he could for eating. And how delicious they are! I am thrilled to try and dry apple slices, make some apple butter, applesauce, apple pie. Tonight we had apple cobbler for dessert, what a treat.




page from Elsa Beskow's Christopher's Harvest Time

With Autumn Blessings~