From the Garden this Week...

The garden is winding down for the year.

I picked the last of the large tomatoes and canned six more quarts today for a grand total total of 20 quarts. There are several plants of Italian Plum that are still ripening. Today I dehydrated a a few pounds of these in the oven. (I have an oven with a dehydrate setting.) I think that is what I will do with the rest of them as they ripen.

(Plum tomatoes dehydrating in the oven on parchment paper.)





Last Thursday I picked the four largest Kaitlin cabbages and processed them into sauerkraut. I haven't made sauerkraut for years, but it is a pretty simple process. The basic process can be summed up in one sentence: Slice, salt, and pack cabbage into jars then let it sit for week to lacto-ferment into sauerkraut. I did this many times when living on the homestead. There is always the chance a couple of jars will spoil. My four large cabbages made about 5 quarts. I'm a little nervous that I will end up with spoiled cabbage, but hopefully I'm worrying for nothing. I peeked into the jars today and the cabbage was bubbling away and smelled good, so it looks like the kraut is off to a good start.

One of the things I am loving from my garden right now is raspberries. An older friend from church gave me several starts from her raspberry patch that was planted by her mother in law more than 60 years ago. I have no idea what kind of raspberries they are, but they are the biggest fall raspberries I have ever seen. Very sweet, too, and more purple than red.

The tomatoes may not have done well this year, but the peppers and eggplants did. Today I froze 7 quarts of peppers. That should keep us supplied for chili, sloppy joe, and stews all winter long.

I'm completely sold on Fairy Tale eggplants. The compact plants produce dozens of small, sweet, tender fruits. They are so good you can eat them raw right off the plant. This is the first time I've had success with growing eggplants. I've been preserving the extra in olive oil with a bit of basil and garlic as they mature.

I still have some green beans to pick, lots of fall greens that I will be eating through November, carrots still in the ground, and several root crops to harvest. The pumpkins continue to look good and I am just waiting for the vines to die back before I pick them.

How is your garden doing? Are you still harvesting or are you done for the season?

Linked to Homestead Barn Hop.