Harvest season is getting into full swing!

It seems like its been a slow start to the harvest this year. Spring was cold and wet. Much of the garden, including everything out at the Rayleigh garden, was late to get planted and slow to start growing. Some things, like the watermelon and cantaloup didn't even start to germinate until July! But when i checked my records from last year it is actually right on schedule with most stuff. Tomatoes are about a week later but everything else is doing just fine. I suspect I am going to be hit with a LOT to get preserved in the next few weeks! The highlight of this year so far has to be these Trionfo Violetta beans! They are growing out in the Rayleigh garden and two weeks ago I picked about a pound of beans - good I thought, if I get this amount once a week it will be lots (I have several other snap/wax beans at home as well)and I happily put most of them in the freezer. Then 1 week later I went out and picked FOUR POUNDS! Three days later another pound. And there are a LOT of beans on the plant still and even more flowers! We will be eating these beans all winter. I wish I liked them canned as i prefer not to rely on the deep freeze but these will all go into the freezer. The thought of eating mushy canned beans is pretty much nauseating. Fresh or frozen on the other hand - yum!



This is the first batch of tomatoes from the garden. We have been eating some fresh for the past week or so but the one "Siberia" plant is ripening en masse. This isn't really enough to bother with the canner though and too much to just eat so I will probably slice them and put them in the dehydrator. Might as well get some dried tomatoes done before the peaches start ripening next week and take up the whole dehydrator for a week! One day I WILL build a big solar dehydrator so I can do more at a time.



Another harvest worth noting . . . this is the painted mountain corn. Alex spent almost an hour shucking these while I collected beans and watered. It was delightful to hear her get so excited when she "unwrapped" each cob and discovered what colour it would be. The first cob she finished was so long that she wandered around the garden for a few minutes brandishing her corn "light sabre" Lol - she may be my little gardening buddy but she definitely has her daddy in her! Towards the end I was forced to guess what colour each cob would be before she started unwrapping!

I can't wait to try this corn in muffins or maybe some polenta. It is so pretty. It is also the quickest corn to grow and produce a crop that I have ever grown. It was the last variety I got planted and still the first to produce harvestable cobs. the cobs still need to finish drying but they flowered well before the neighbours corn even started to show tassles so I should be safe to save seed from it.