i forget

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buckwheat ready to go under

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a big meal for a little bug

Harvest time is in the smell of the air and in the cool nights. My favorite time of the year (along with spring, summer, fall and all but a month and a half of winter).

I continually struggle to find the right balance of crops to grow for storage and crops to grow for fresh eating. Haven’t found it. Probably won’t.

Our freezer, unfortunately, is finite, and there needs to be room for ice cream. I don’t own a pressure canner, so that limits what can be preserved without refrigeration.

This year I’ve only been overwhelmed by beans. The broccoli, cauliflower and kohlrabi were perfectly proportioned for our needs. The garlic was also spot-on. The corn’s still coming. I’m not sure about the dry storage vegetables yet, the potatoes, onions and carrots, because they went in late and I haven’t pulled them yet. Above ground they all look promising.

The pickling cukes are a bust, as I’ve mentioned. That hurts, because next to tomatoes, pickles are my favorite garden result. Insult to injury, the batch of pickling cukes that I was able to save, I butchered. I started with a half batch recipe and by the time the brine was made, I’d forgotten that I was halving it. Result: pickles made of basically pure salt. Inedible.

Gardening is about both sameness and unpredictability. That’s why I’ve never lost interest, not even for a season. I know what SHOULD happen, and I don’t know what WILL happen.

I’ve forgotten the premise of the post. Maybe there never was one. Aging is hell.

8 thoughts on “i forget”

  1. Our weather got hot again. 80’s for the next several days and warm nights. Good for tomatoes. Beans are just starting and with the apples, summer squash and kale will probably burst the freezer doors open.

    Have you tried drying produce? I do that for my excess summer squash, tomatoes and apples. Of course you’ve got to have a drier and a place for all the dried foods. Space is always at a premium here.

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  2. Sounds like you have a good harvest on the way! Yes, I do have a drying. I absolutely love dried apples. And I dry hot peppers. Tried raspberry leather once, but that didn’t go well.

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  4. So sorry to read about your cukes. 😦 But I completely get the last sentence of your post. You crack me up.

    Do you blanch and freeze your beans? I think this is how my mother did it. Probably doesn’t even need the blanching. We’ve pulled fresh frozen okra and tossed it straight onto the grill. Deeeeelish. I bet green beans could be done the same way.

    We eat most of the food from our garden fresh. I only cook a thing if it CAN’T be eaten fresh. But we have 6 faces to feed here, so rarely any leftover.

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    • I’m not sure of the science behind it Shannon, but I believe that blanching (in the case of beans anyway) does something with the enzymes that actually gives the frozen versions better texture and flavor than they’d have without blanching. And I’ve never even tried okra. I might have to give it a whirl next year!

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