The gardening season is well over here in upstate New York, USA. I have not had a chance to post on Hive in quite a while as I am busy studying about my newest passion in life, a subject for a future post. But here I am on vacation in Nashville Tennessee, with nothing to do but wait for my daughter to return from an evening work meeting. What better time than to peruse my photos? Lo, I found a great many pics, intended for a garden journal post, that I took in months past. Now that my garden is mostly ripped up and heaped in compost piles, it's been fun to revisit it through photos.
Man did I ever eat well in August! I had a variety of foods then, but far too many fruits. I bought a chest freezer just to have somewhere to put all the strawberries, raspberries and peaches I simply could not eat or give away. Things could have been worse!!
My strawberries were grown in an 8 foot by 2 foot elevated planter. I got a good 15 quarts out of them! Far more than I needed and, although strawberries are my favorite fruit, I won't be growing them again next year. I hope to use this planter instead for lettuces, and to keep a supply of same producing for me for as much of the year I can. I've grown very fond of having a nice big salad of homegrown greens for breakfast every day (keeps me regular!) and had to buy them this year. Wish me luck!
My third year peach tree produced a great many peaches. I made myself peach cobblers every morning for a few weeks there, and look forward to doing the same in future years.
This year I learned that raspberries, while easy to grow, are not so easy to keep tidy! Boy do they ever shoot up to the heavens quickly, too quickly this year for me to have trellised them. I hope to get a suitable trellis built over the winter, so that these scrumptious berries will be both happier and easier to harvest.
I planted three different varieties of pole beans, which sure looked lovely where I put them, but didn't really produce all that much. That was fine, because by the time the pole beans ripened, I had had my fill of bush beans. Next year, half as many bush beans (wax beans so that I can see them more easily while harvesting), and twice as many pole beans, is the plan for 2025
I forgot I had planted some lettuce for fall eating back by my acorn squash, but boy was I happy when I finally started eating this stuff. It was yummy, and gorgeous on the plate.
The crabapple I planted in a barrel three seasons ago is still going great guns, and I harvested enough to make a batch of red raspberry and crabapple jelly sometime soon.
Gardening can't all be about growing food, now can it? I managed to get quite a lovely sitting area going up on my temporarily reclaimed asphalt. All of this is easily folded up and gotten out of the way so that the area becomes, every winter, nothing more than a driveway to my garage. I miss having this pretty spot, but I love being able to drive my car into the garage, not having to shovel it out when it snows, and getting my driveway plowed, so I just have to live without. Temporarily.
Whenever I come close to wrapping up a garden journal post, I realize there is a great deal I haven't told you. Potatoes, onions, cabbage, garlic, herbs, flowers, nightshades, squashes, salsas, relishes, beets, parsnips, carrots and more.
I've got quite a bit of food stored for the winter, frozen, dried, canned, pickled, fermented, dehydrated and in dry storage. I always feel a relief when it's all over to be honest. But by sometime in February, I am refreshed, and it all starts up again.
Thanks for being here with me, y'all. Now go out and hug a tree.
Love from Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
This is my entry to The Hive Garden Community's last-of-2024 monthly garden journal challenge. Come on by and check out what others are growing all over this beautiful planet! And tell us about your own. You know you want to...
