![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Plenty, the Assurance Of
Aug. 19th, 2012 08:15 pmAugust is living up to its billing - tomatoes ripening almost as we watch, overflowing the counters and produce basket; peppers dangling like red tinsel, begging to be picked; basil and parsley overflowing together into a bee carnival. Watermelons have been harvested and enjoyed. Last weekend, with the promise of cooler weather, I spent a day canning tomato sauce (ten pints). This weekend, the weather even cooler, I put up so much ginger plum jam that I ran out of space in the canner--27 jelly jars full of deep, dark, incredibly flavorful red jam. There'll be more canning later on, once I've built up enough additional tomatoes in the freezer (for stewing, this time) and the season's fresh cranberries and apples (for wine jelly) are available in the grocery store, and in another month the sweet potatoes will be ready to dig.
The cosmos are not to be outdone by the veggies, either. I've got volunteers coming up in every bed. Memories of Mona, the variety I bought from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (http://www.southernexposure.com/) this spring, has brought its promised red-washed blooms to my own saved strain of this favorite flower. I very much look forward to seeing the reddish flowers share their genes with their more orange and yellow cousins. It'll be time to save this season's seed as soon as we get another dry snap.
And then the other half of August, in the midst of the orgy of harvest time, is planning for continuity: the fall garden. I have two beds to clear of their summer growth of weeds. The best heads of garlic I harvested in the last days of June, now well cured, will be broken up into individual cloves and tucked back into the ground for next year's crop. I've got Lacinato kale and a trio of mixed lettuces and mesclun on the way. Maybe some carrots, too, this fall? Oh, and the Scarlet Charlotte swiss chard to make up winter salads, and beets, and lots and lots of tatsoi and spinach. (Which reminds me; I need to buy spinach seed. And some of the heavier sort of kale for the chickens' winter greens. I saved all the tatsoi seed I'll need from this spring's crop.)
From one season to another, from one year to the next. Life on the farm goes on!
The cosmos are not to be outdone by the veggies, either. I've got volunteers coming up in every bed. Memories of Mona, the variety I bought from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (http://www.southernexposure.com/) this spring, has brought its promised red-washed blooms to my own saved strain of this favorite flower. I very much look forward to seeing the reddish flowers share their genes with their more orange and yellow cousins. It'll be time to save this season's seed as soon as we get another dry snap.
And then the other half of August, in the midst of the orgy of harvest time, is planning for continuity: the fall garden. I have two beds to clear of their summer growth of weeds. The best heads of garlic I harvested in the last days of June, now well cured, will be broken up into individual cloves and tucked back into the ground for next year's crop. I've got Lacinato kale and a trio of mixed lettuces and mesclun on the way. Maybe some carrots, too, this fall? Oh, and the Scarlet Charlotte swiss chard to make up winter salads, and beets, and lots and lots of tatsoi and spinach. (Which reminds me; I need to buy spinach seed. And some of the heavier sort of kale for the chickens' winter greens. I saved all the tatsoi seed I'll need from this spring's crop.)
From one season to another, from one year to the next. Life on the farm goes on!
