Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Wrapping Up Fall


Fall here seems to have come and gone again in about one day this year! Temps went right from warm (in the 80's F, above normal for summer here) to hard freezes and snowstorms in a few days. Making it a bit of a race to get all the food possible preserved before everything froze solid. It looked like the scene above for only about one day before more snow erased all the hints of yellow and gold around my house. 


Despite the issues with my garden this year, I did get a good harvest of some things. Like carrots. Lots of carrots, in all kinds of colors.

Also a good crop of onions and leaks, though sadly my pesky voles munched through almost all my garlic. A few peas, and a few green beans which was really exciting since I have planted green beans for three years and always ended up with them being killed by frost about the time they would flower.  I also harvested plenty of my reliable frost hardy crops like beets, chard, kale, and other greens. 


I found wild elderberries and picked a whole box.



Turning them into quite a bit of juice which is now canned and should last me most of the year.



I made several batches of sauerkraut.


Picked wild rosehips and dried them. 


Picked many boxes of apples, off a tree that I'd never seen produce anything before, and made apple sauce. Along with quite a few pies, apple crisp, etc. It seems all the wild berry and fruit bushes produced record crops this year which was great for me. 


Which also turned into lots of piles of dishes. I'm so glad I have a double sink in my tiny house!


I got a few potatoes, though most of them did not grow this movie. But again, the ones I did get were all kinds of pretty colors!


Lots of herbs from the flower boxes around the house which I picked and dried for use throughout the winter. 




As I wrapped up the garden, I started leaving the gates open in my fence, and it didn't take more than a few hours for the deer to arrive and explore what they could maybe still much on.


And then there have been quite a few more snow storms. The 7 inches above came down in one night!


At this point it just feels like winter here, even though most of the snows have come and gone again down around my house. The mountains are keeping their snow at the higher elevations. What's fall like in your area right now?