Tomato harvest! & other beautiful flowers

 

Pickling, canning, & starting fall garden

There is better news to report this week. I harvested tomatoes from the garden and have already used all of them in dinners. 

My grandparents gave me cucumbers that they were donated, and because there were so many, I picked them with fresh dill from my apartment garden. For seasoning, I added mustard seed, dill seed and black pepper, and the brine was made with half white vinegar, half water and salt. I used my instant pot on the steam setting for 1 minute to water bath can the pickles. To be honest, that was my first time water bath canning with the instant pot and I am still skeptical if I processed the pickles safely. I have always just used a large pot with a lid to water bath can pickles for 10 minutes, and that has always been successful. 

And, I have attempted the fall garden for the third time this past month. I hope this time it is successful, as I purchased 40 dollars worth of broccoli, cauliflower and kale plants.

As you can see below, the gardens are at different stages of growing. With the plants I purchased, I put up a fence around the patch to make sure to deter animals. I have put salt around the plants to deter bugs...we shall see I'd that helps...

Corn growing to the sky. 

I had to fix the tomato plants on their posts. I retied them, made sure every limb was on the post, and added any extra posts to secure the planta, as needed. 

In these garden beds, theres radishes up growing. Some carrot seed germinated and I hope they do fantastic amongst these Coxcomb plants.

Some if the remaining broccoli and kale i had went into these garden beds. I use netting to keep my cats out and course salt to keep bugs off. 

My grandmother's Coxcomb plants look even more extraordinary by the day.

HUGE & EPIC radish harvest!

I have not stopped picking leaves for soups, salads, and sandwiches. I have noticed while the greens grow slowly, the radishes grow quickly!

Now I have 4 rows of radishes growing intermittently with greens and onion, and some strawberries. So  I have a large quantity of big radishes.


Today, I pulled up a patch of radishes and below you'll see that epic harvest.

After I pulled up the radishes, I worked the soil and sowed some peas, and covered with additional soil mix.

From here, I bagged and dated the radishes to give away or sell. Of course, I have been doing more giving than selling. Here are some additional pickings from the garden...

Asparagus 

There are many side projects behind the scenes...laying sand for ceramic tile in between the garden beds, tilling and hoeing the other gardens, filling pots and grow bags with soil mixes for planting. I have 45 garden pots and probably 20 grow bags filled with mulch and compost. In those, I'm going to plant melons, squashes, peppers, and tomatoes. I have potatoes already poking throigh the soil in the grow bags.

At my other gardens, I have potatoes growing in bags, buckets and in the ground. I am helping my grandparents in their landscaping endeavours as well, so I have made several flower beds and started additional flower bed spaces.

Like I said, there's so much going on, it's hard to detail all in one post. But, I'll keep y'all updated! See you soon.

Garden fancy, photos of harvests and foraging mushrooms

Squash

Gourd growing 

Flower herb garden with toilet art 

Chanterelle mushrooms foraged in the woods

Mushroom forage harvest made into a vegan risotto 

Blueberry, broccoli, squash harvest & other garden happenings

Squash and corn garden

Bean garden 

Blueberry harvest & broccoli, squash from the garden.
Had the squash and broccoli fried then pureed as a soup with potatoes and leeks.

Not sure what this is but I ate it like it was zucchini.
Cooked it fried with rice.

Grapes to make some wine or jam, not sure yet

Rose of sharon looking tropical and poised

Hoed the potato patch + pea & lettuce harvest dinner

Made salad, creamed peas, & peas with rice curry

Hoed potatoes yesterday

Sewed more zucchini by the corn

Put the scarecrows out to prevent critters from eating the food