winding down

The end of summer isn’t a time, it’s a process. Plants die off slowly, leaving harvest to stretch out over a period of weeks.

Although I’ve pulled two tomato plants and have a couple more on their last legs, there are still three or four producing. We’ve canned two batches of salsa, some whole tomatoes, and made tomato sauce. Now the shelf space is all used up, and the freezer is getting difficult to navigate.

Another weirdly big Amish Paste tomato to be used for next year’s seed

But I have trouble not putting produce to good use, so yesterday I made a final (?) batch of salsa for freezing, just for me, with plenty of hot peppers. Since the pantry wasn’t an option, I decided to freeze the salsa, first in ice cube trays, then putting the hot salsa cubes into freezer bags. Makes it simple to take out just the amount I need at supper time.

I just hope there’s still room in there for ice cream.

With gardening winding down, it seemed like a good time to take care of another project that’s been on the to-do list; a couple of drying rods in my grow closet.

In the past, our drying produce has hung in the barn, which isn’t ideal. It’s damp in there, and I always feel like I’m luring rodents to a feast.

With a couple of lengths of PVC left over from the chicken tractor build and a couple of pieces of scrap wood, it was done.

It’ll be easy to remove the rods if they get in the way, and there’s plenty of rack space for my needs. The only possible hitch might be the lack of air movement, but we’ll see.