Happy Autumnal Equinox! Here’s a brief garden update.
Not a part of the garden, but the Spousal Unit has gone a bit mad propagating figs.
The grapevine has recovered nicely after he hacked it back earlier this year to save the fence.
Yes, that’s a tiny watermelon dangling in mid-air.
We will have enough butternut squash to feed a small country.
Ditto the acorn squash.
Here’s what that squash plot looks like from above. A bear could be hiding underneath and we wouldn’t know it. The tall, dry stalks are the remnants of corn.
The chicks are growing nicely eating the veggie compost. Waste not, and all that.
The tomato and bean plants look ragged but are still producing, as are the eggplants. Unfortunately, voles, ground hogs, rabbits, and other critters have ensured that we have very little fall crops. It’s depressing, but at least we have a good bit of green beans and tomatoes put up for the year.
What’s in the root cellar…doesn’t include all the veggies we froze.
The events of the past week have sunk me into the depths of despair. I have done what I personally could to help out..not only my Black sisters and brothers, but also to give myself some sense of being in control when the people in power seek to take that away from us. I’ve donated to causes, signed petitions, amplified Black voices on social media, and bought books from Black creators.
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the organization I volunteer for, has put out a list of Black-owned bookstores that we can all frequent:
In my own little corner of the world, watching nature renew itself and grow, reaching with energetic optimism towards the sky also helps to calm and center me.
“What’s so funny about peas, love, and understanding?” indeed.
Using basil as perimeter defense because apparently nothing besides humans likes that stuff.
Our new asparagus bed!
Stay safe, stay sane, my friends. And hold onto hope.
Every year around this time, hubby starts the seedlings for another full year of gardening. It’s a season of hope and optimism for good harvests that we can eat and preserve (until voles, vine-borers and other vermin destroy that dream).
This year, with so much fear and uncertainty in the air (not making a joke here), starting seedlings is even more important as an act of defiant hope and self-preservation.
So here is what we’ve started so far…
these cuties are situated beneath a big window
These other ones are on a warming mat and are therefore in the somewhat filthy utility room:
but no less cute…the right sideand the left side
Are you growing something for hope and food this year?
Hubby noted last night that it’s the beginning of October and we are still eating bounty from our garden. We’re also still processing tons of veggies from the garden. Oh. Yay.
But you’re here for the food photos, I know, so I’ll get straight to that…
Hubby is practical and has become more so as he’s aged. We used to grow flowers, partly because his mom was into flowers so when she was still alive, she would encourage it and even buy us plants to put in.
But as we’d gotten into homesteading, we don’t want to bother putting in so much labor, time, and water for annuals that don’t feed us. We grow plenty of native flowering perennials which are good for wildlife and don’t require much work of us, but for ourselves, we focus on what we can eat and put away for the winter months.
It’s been a cool, wet spring, so the garden has yet to truly take off. But here are a few photos of what is growing outside of the main fenced garden…