Pickling & Prepping Fall Garden

On Monday, I drove out to one of the gardens, and cleaned up the rows of potatoes. 

I was able harvest some more I dug up; and then I tilled this patch. 

I blocked this patch off with fencing to keep the vining cucumber and squash plants away so I could plant a small fall garden.  

I managed to weed, till, fence off, AND sow seeds actually! I sowed Romaine and butter crunch lettuce, Collards, Spinach, and Arugula seed. 

While cleaning up the cucumber and squash patch, I harvested some cucumbers and pickled these 3 small jars with some apple cider vinegar, fresh garlic, fresh dill from my apartment garden, and salt, black pepper, and mustard seed.

Gourds & Squash growing bigger

 This has been kind of a depressing garden this summer. I can say that I have been able to harvest some potatoes, beans, and cucumbers so far; but it has been an internal tragedy of mine that I haven't harvested peppers, tomatoes or anything cool this summer. 

I have gourds, cushaw and corn growing now buy I'm nervous that the corn isn't going to be worth harvesting and the gourds will rot. It seems that many of the squash have already rotted; and I had tons of peaches that are rotting on the tree before they even can ripen. 

Peach & pears + Squash & gourds in August

Yesterday, I worked in the garden placing cardboard on each of my cushaw squash and gourds growing. I didn't take pictures of the cushaws, but here are a few of the little gourds growing...

Today, I investigated my other garden. I was not pleased. I hadn't been able to tend to it in months. It was out of control with weeds that were taller than houses. But, almost all of my peach and pear trees had fruit. 

There were probably hundreds of peaches, but the majority were rotten or rotting. 

Grandma canned the beans and potatoes I harvested last week...

Here I have harvested some cucumbers from the garden. 

I aim to pickle some of these cucumbers I harvested yesterday too. I was gifted some peppers, so I want to pickle the peppers with the cucumbers. 

Bean picking, tater digging & shroom foraging

 Today, I dug up some potatoes and picked beans and cucumbers. 

I separated the smaller potatoes to be canned with the beans. 

Here, my grandmother pressure canned the beans that I picked...

A couple of days ago, I picked these cucumbers. Sometimes they hide on me and when I don't find them for a couple of days, they are later found large and in charge.

Over the last couple of days, Ashley and I have been taking nature walks. We have come across a variety of mushrooms as the weather has been the perfect formula for mushrooms growing. It has been hot and intermittently wet. 

I picked some red chanterelles today and I'm going to fry these little morsels for a snack tonight.

Gourds everywhere & garden flowers

 I know I have been taking pictures of the same garden features this year; I have not been able to get to my second garden which was my Food forest garden. Unfortunately, I'm not sure when I'll ever get back there. 

I digress, though; in this garden, I tied up my corn on yesterday. They were flattened by the flooding; so I bundled them on posts. Around the corn are gourds growing everywhere and beans making another flush. I'm going to lick the beans tomorrow; but I wanted to show you a couple of cute gourds that will be going in my Fall scene.

Fall will be upon us before we know it. For a month it has been 80 to 90 degrees everyday; but I feel the summer creeping out. 

The cucumbers are finally producing.

And, my Grandmother's flower gardens are never boring...