I so want to visit a county fair in your neck of the woods one day! All our "fall fairs" finish up before the end of August. So many farms around here that they are all into harvest by then and school starts up the first week of September and no one has the time to volunteer once school is back in.
We had 85-90F weather the first two weeks of September (odd) and then it slowly lowered until the first day of autumn when it dropped right off. Frost has hit some outlying places but not in town yet. I've left my garden carrots for frost, hoping they taste a bit better. My tomatoes are under plastic and sheets trying to ripen a bit but they stopped growing once the heat disappeared. Harvest is finished. People are trying to get in the hay bales before it suddenly snows lol. I still haven't pulled my beets as I have to use the pressure canner for the 1st time. My MIL handed it down and it came with the original manual. It's from 1945! It still works as far as we can see but anything new is hard. I was canning outside bc our rental house stove just can't keep the heat up so I was using a propane burner outside but I hear you can't have drafts around the pressure canner?? Anyway, that's what is happening in northern British Columbia, Canada :) Always love hearing what you are up to way over there :)
Just coming into our growing season here in New Zealand with pruning and cleaning up completed and seeding coming to fruition. Lovely to see one of our local kindling splitters in your photo of the woodshed! What an awesome invention from one enterprising young woman. Maggie from Taranaki, NZ.
That's one of the few green tomato canning recipes I don't have! I should try that one this year. I actually can't even find a recipe online specifically for dill relish, but I bet this on would be good with the addition of a bit of dill seed:
Greetings, Ashley. Your home is ahead of ours, am waiting on the lambs quarters to ripen the seeds. We had more rain than normal during August and September, so we are still green and lush. The chokecherries were a banner harvest this year, gave away a bunch! Gojis are ready to pick when I can get to them. None of our fruit trees produced due to wacky weather in spring, dropping all the blooms... no peaches, nectarines or plums... No apples for me either, but next year we should catch up! Thank goodness for the Community Support Agriculture farms and the markets! Many blessings to you, sister. I always appreciate your work!
Thank you so much Becky! This year we're just the opposite, record drought and everything's dried down early. (But I'll take it over the floods of the last few years...wacky weather for sure!)
Yes... We are trying to adapt in the face of not knowing what to expect. So we become quite nimble, don't we?? Enjoy the season, Ashley. Bless you for your work.
We had such a cool, wet spring that we are harvesting watermelons (and tomatoes/orka/canteloupe/green beans) right now in our NE Kansas garden! We've had a beautiful year but everything was delayed. Those are more like July/August things for us. We also have a big crop of "ground cherries" that came up wild in the garden. My guess is it was in the straw we used for mulch. Ours are greenish purple. Going to harvest for the first time and try one of the recipes from your site. Curious if you are in your new home going into this winter and if that changed how you prepare.
We just finally moved into our new house this past week and I'm hoping to share updates on that soon. With greenish purple ground cherries, they maybe taste a bit more like tomatillos? They interbreed and are closely related, so sometimes you'll get small purple tomatillos with a bit of green tomatillo taste and the sweetness of a husk cherry. Let me know how they are!
Fascinating experience. You are lucky you live with mother nature in peace. It seems your community is also healthy. I'm envy. Here in New York, local people are different: they don't produce anything on their land, they do mostly care about the lawn to be green and even. Youth left country and only retired people inhabiting my surrounding for 50 miles radius. You are lucky you have energy, healthy family and you love what you are doing.
I don’t so much have a homestead as I live alone and can’t do much of the work required. But I did harvest a couple dozen peaches that I had planted last year, until the ants found them. That is a major question I have: how to keep ants and yellowjackets out of my fruit! I didn’t get but a handful of fall raspberries this year due to them and the fall rainstorms that make the fruit moldy. How do you deal with such issues if they happen where you are? I’m in RI, zone 5-6, between dry upland and swamp. Thanks, I enjoy your posts!
Here in western Montana, we're about at the same place in our season. It seems like this Sunday might be our first frost, so we're using this week to make sure vegetables that will die off in the frost are harvested (and cured, for the pumpkins and such). The aronia berries are in the freezer; the last batch of wine (pear) is fermenting, and we're going to be bringing in some lettuce seeds for next year's planting. Meanwhile I'm furiously trying to get the last of the green beans and tomatoes canned, the last of the cucumbers fermenting, etc. Every day right now feels like a mad rush, but I know the down time (relatively) is coming.
I so want to visit a county fair in your neck of the woods one day! All our "fall fairs" finish up before the end of August. So many farms around here that they are all into harvest by then and school starts up the first week of September and no one has the time to volunteer once school is back in.
We had 85-90F weather the first two weeks of September (odd) and then it slowly lowered until the first day of autumn when it dropped right off. Frost has hit some outlying places but not in town yet. I've left my garden carrots for frost, hoping they taste a bit better. My tomatoes are under plastic and sheets trying to ripen a bit but they stopped growing once the heat disappeared. Harvest is finished. People are trying to get in the hay bales before it suddenly snows lol. I still haven't pulled my beets as I have to use the pressure canner for the 1st time. My MIL handed it down and it came with the original manual. It's from 1945! It still works as far as we can see but anything new is hard. I was canning outside bc our rental house stove just can't keep the heat up so I was using a propane burner outside but I hear you can't have drafts around the pressure canner?? Anyway, that's what is happening in northern British Columbia, Canada :) Always love hearing what you are up to way over there :)
Nice! I'd love to see a pressure canning manual from 1945, that's amazing!
Just coming into our growing season here in New Zealand with pruning and cleaning up completed and seeding coming to fruition. Lovely to see one of our local kindling splitters in your photo of the woodshed! What an awesome invention from one enterprising young woman. Maggie from Taranaki, NZ.
That thing is AMAZING! We actually have 4 of them. In the woodshed, by the camp, etc. So handy!
This is fantastic! All the detail and explanation is perfect. Thank you.
I really enjoyed your list of September chores and activities. You must be exhausted. Enjoy!
This was really lovely to read. I loved the reminders of our time in Vermont.
Wonderful!
Thank you once again Becky! I'm looking for a Green Tomato Dill relish recipe, do you have one?
That's one of the few green tomato canning recipes I don't have! I should try that one this year. I actually can't even find a recipe online specifically for dill relish, but I bet this on would be good with the addition of a bit of dill seed:
https://brooklynfarmgirl.com/green-tomato-relish/
Here are all my green tomato canning recipes: https://creativecanning.com/green-tomato-canning-recipes/
My favorite one is this Southern Chow Chow: https://creativecanning.com/southern-chow-chow/
And this all green tomato Canadian chow chow is really good too, and uses up green tomatoes like nothing else: https://creativecanning.com/green-tomato-chow-chow-canadian-style/
Greetings, Ashley. Your home is ahead of ours, am waiting on the lambs quarters to ripen the seeds. We had more rain than normal during August and September, so we are still green and lush. The chokecherries were a banner harvest this year, gave away a bunch! Gojis are ready to pick when I can get to them. None of our fruit trees produced due to wacky weather in spring, dropping all the blooms... no peaches, nectarines or plums... No apples for me either, but next year we should catch up! Thank goodness for the Community Support Agriculture farms and the markets! Many blessings to you, sister. I always appreciate your work!
Thank you so much Becky! This year we're just the opposite, record drought and everything's dried down early. (But I'll take it over the floods of the last few years...wacky weather for sure!)
Yes... We are trying to adapt in the face of not knowing what to expect. So we become quite nimble, don't we?? Enjoy the season, Ashley. Bless you for your work.
We had such a cool, wet spring that we are harvesting watermelons (and tomatoes/orka/canteloupe/green beans) right now in our NE Kansas garden! We've had a beautiful year but everything was delayed. Those are more like July/August things for us. We also have a big crop of "ground cherries" that came up wild in the garden. My guess is it was in the straw we used for mulch. Ours are greenish purple. Going to harvest for the first time and try one of the recipes from your site. Curious if you are in your new home going into this winter and if that changed how you prepare.
We just finally moved into our new house this past week and I'm hoping to share updates on that soon. With greenish purple ground cherries, they maybe taste a bit more like tomatillos? They interbreed and are closely related, so sometimes you'll get small purple tomatillos with a bit of green tomatillo taste and the sweetness of a husk cherry. Let me know how they are!
Fascinating experience. You are lucky you live with mother nature in peace. It seems your community is also healthy. I'm envy. Here in New York, local people are different: they don't produce anything on their land, they do mostly care about the lawn to be green and even. Youth left country and only retired people inhabiting my surrounding for 50 miles radius. You are lucky you have energy, healthy family and you love what you are doing.
Long live!
Stay healthy and live longer !
Thank you Bogdan!
I don’t so much have a homestead as I live alone and can’t do much of the work required. But I did harvest a couple dozen peaches that I had planted last year, until the ants found them. That is a major question I have: how to keep ants and yellowjackets out of my fruit! I didn’t get but a handful of fall raspberries this year due to them and the fall rainstorms that make the fruit moldy. How do you deal with such issues if they happen where you are? I’m in RI, zone 5-6, between dry upland and swamp. Thanks, I enjoy your posts!
Here in western Montana, we're about at the same place in our season. It seems like this Sunday might be our first frost, so we're using this week to make sure vegetables that will die off in the frost are harvested (and cured, for the pumpkins and such). The aronia berries are in the freezer; the last batch of wine (pear) is fermenting, and we're going to be bringing in some lettuce seeds for next year's planting. Meanwhile I'm furiously trying to get the last of the green beans and tomatoes canned, the last of the cucumbers fermenting, etc. Every day right now feels like a mad rush, but I know the down time (relatively) is coming.