The Eye of the Beholder

Our garden doesn't look so neat and tidy anymore.

 

It's more like a jungle.  Weeds have been persistent.  Many have worn us down to the point that we've let them take up residence.  While to many of you this may look less than lovely, to me it is beautiful.  Not because I like weeds or untidy things, but because it means I am almost done preserving!!

Can you hear the alleluia chorus?!  I can.  Loud and clear.

There are a few things still alive and relatively well taken care of in the garden.

The stevia is patiently waiting to be harvested, dried and crushed into a powder.  Would you be patiently waiting if you knew that was coming?  Fall spinach is slowly coming up on the right.

What is left of the basil has gone to seed and flower, drawing butterflies and bees.

While the peppers are clearly in need of some water, they are still ripening nicely.  We've been harvesting and freezing peppers for awhile now.

 Sweet potatoes vines.

 Our fall lettuce is coming up nicely and it's so wonderful to be eating salads again- this time with tomatoes!!

 The back garden is pretty much done- except for some onions, leeks, depressed sunflowers waiting to dry and be harvested for the chickens to eat this winter (to the left) and another newly started bed of spinach (off to the right).  Since much of it is done, it got a nice, heavy coat of straw for the winter to help prepare it for next spring.

The only things left to do this year are...

1) Can concord grape jam.

2) Continue roasting tomatoes.  A few more batches and I should be done.

3) Harvest what's left in the garden as it's ready- tomatoes, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, some remaining onions, stevia (to dry) and herbs (to freeze). 

4) Cover the carrots and leeks snugly with straw so we can see how well they winter over.  We're going to try pulling them from the ground as we need them this winter.

5) Pick the pears off our lone pear tree.  Depending on the state they're in, we may can them.  Otherwise, we'll just eat them.

6) Make copious amounts of applesauce (our trees are too young to produce for us, so we have to buy them).

7) Watch the remainder of our red raspberries dry up since it's been real dry here.  Again.

8) Eat fresh fall spinach and lettuce as they come up.

It all seems so momentous in the spring, but the finale that is fall and winter is more of a dwindling.  It's just as exciting, though, because it means all the long days on my feet in the kitchen are over.

I thank God for the change in seasons.  I can't imagine life with only one.  Or two.  Or three.  It's just right as it is.