First Fig of the year, sweet potatoes, Pear, carrots & Apple Fall Fest

First fig of the season 

Sweet potato & carrot harvest 

Odd shaped pear fruit 

Fruit trees in fall

This passed weekend, I worked outside diligently cleaning the shed, the porch, and trying to decorate for fall and halloween. In fact, I put up some of my usual decorations today. Sunday I went to an apple festival in my area and bought cider and a bag of McIntosh apples. 

Cucumbers into pickles, Squash, & Potato Harvest in July

After the potato flowers bloomed and the plant started to die, I harvested the potatoes from four grow bags. Last night we baked the squash and potatoes in the oven for dinner. Even for lunch today I made some baked potatoes. Also today I made pickles with the cucumbers I harvested yesterday and the day before.

Harvested zucchini, crookneck squash, cucumber & Beets + Pickled beets

pickled beets with distilled vinegar, beet juice, pickling salt, garlic powder, sugar, & black pepper

I have already been eating lots of zucchini and crookneck squash from the garden with some rice. So now I want to mix it up and try different recipes with the zucchini and crookneck squash.

zucchini, crookneck squash & cucumber

Peppers in polytunnel, Potatoes flowering, & garden harvest of radish, swiss chard, collards

I replaced the broccoli and cabbage that was eaten by rabbits with pepper transplants. The pepper plants are still small, but I figured they would thrive in the compost heap beside the potatoes. I started the peppers back in the middle of March (15th to be exact.) So once the peppers get settled into their new home, they will quickly grow in size and start flowering. The potatoes in the grow bags have started to flower. I believe they have been flowering for a week now. My grandma says after they are done flowering is when you harvest the potatoes.

So I will continue to update on the progress of the gardens. Below are pictures of one of my gardens with the peppers and potatoes, and the last picture is a harvest out of another garden that is growing a mix of greens. 

potatoes in handmade grow bags

peppers in polytunnel

Honeysuckle jelly + vertical trellis hugelkultur garden & More potatoes in growbags

This past week has been very aromatic outside with the honeysuckles blooming. When the wind blows, the scent is carried all over the yard, especially after a rain it is quite a lovely feeling. Because I have lots of honeysuckle growing all over the yard, I wanted to try making the jelly for the first time. I used a recipe I found at Taylor Made Homesteading which goes as follows: Honeysuckle jelly made with 4 cups of petals without green stem or leafs. First boil 4 cups of water and take off of heat when it begins to boil. Then add the petals to steep for 45 minutes with a lid. After 45 minutes, strain the petals from the liquid. With 2 cups of the remaining liquid, boil with 4 cups of sugar (according to the recipe here) but I only used 2 1/2 cups of sugar with 1/4 cup of lemon juice. Let boil and stir to dissolve the sugar, then add 1 package of liquid pectin and stir for a remaining 2 minutes. Then can the ingredients as you usually would jellies and jams. This recipe made 4 half pints for me. I make sure to sterilize the rings and jars and new lids, then fill a pot with 1 inch of water and put the honeysuckle liquid in the jars and seal the jars with the lids. Boil the jars in the water for 5 minutes, and afterwards let cool on a towel.

Other things I have been working on in the last few days is sewing more potato grow bags. I believe there were 10 bags already sewn that James put together, and with those and 8 that I sewed myself, I end up gluing 18 bags and filling them with compost to plant potatoes. Also, I sewed some carrot seed within the potatoes. The potato grow bags in previous pictures were placed at my grandparents' house, and I figured with these I would place the grow bags at my house so I could distribute the compost around the garden here.

The potatoes at my grandparents' is looking tall and healthy.

With the compost, I spread on two flower beds, in the potato grow bags, around the fruiting blueberry bushes, and spread a thin layer on the squash/zucchini, cucumber, leafy green, and melon/squash hugelkultur mounds.

Additionally, I dug holes for tomato transplants and filled the holes with compost and posted the tomatoes with tobacco sticks.

In another location I dug holes and filled with compost to sew more melon seeds tomorrow.

Also today I put up fencing in three rows of the garden to trellis the cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and artichoke. 

And of course, I got another radish harvest...

Potatoes growing in bags, lots of Peaches in early May + Radish harvest

peach tree with lots of fruits

The blueberries are turning colors too, signifying that the fruits will be ready to harvest soon. Because the next couple of days will be drastically much colder, I'm going to cover the fruiting fig trees and the blueberries and raspberries with the Agfabric I used on the trees early spring to protect them from the frost. 

Potatoes planted in handmade grow bags

For the first week we kept a plastic sheet over top of the potatoes and secured the plastic with rebar and rocks to hold in place. Now that this week is going to be in the 80s, I uncovered the potatoes that are growing in these hand made bags my partner made. My partner stitched the bags and I glued the bottoms, then we shoveled compost into each bag, and then planted on average 3 potatoes per bag. I believe there are 20 bags here.
We have more potatoes chitting under a grow light and laying out on cardboard underneath the lights. This chitting process helps the potatoes to begin to spud and we will either plant the remaining potatoes in grow bags or tilled up an area in the garden to sow them in a mound.

What to grow in the fall and winter indoors (VIDEO)

"Cherry Belle" Radish harvest, late November/Zone 6

November 20th 2015 

November 23rd harvest