Harvest Season is in FULL swing

The garden is abundantly producing and we are working to put it all away.  It's a fantastic time of year!

All the flowers are in bloom now and the birds and butterflies are most happy.  The colors make us happy too. 

Many onions are ready for harvest.  We dry them for a few days outdoors in the sun then move them indoors to finish curing.

Beets are still coming along.  The greens don't like the heat, but the roots do just fine.  We harvested a couple buckets and probably have a few more buckets left to harvest towards the end of the season.  We are freezing many of these for the winter.

Sweet peppers, cayenne peppers, jalapenos and anaheim chiles are all coming on strong.  We are drying the cayenne peppers and the red anaheims and freezing all the rest we don't use right away.  The habaneros are still green, but are growing larger.

The lemon cucumbers are going nuts this summer!  We can hardly keep up.  We eat most fresh, give some away and will can a few pints of pickles for the winter.  The long cukes are Boothby's Blonde and are good too.  The skin is thicker, more like your typical green cucumber.  The lemon cukes sport a very thin rind...perfect for eating on homemade bread sandwiches with a bit of cream cheese and herbs. 

Typical kitchen scene this summer...

We are harvesting and drying many herbs too.  Currently drying is basil (also are freezing lots of this, some with oil, some with water, some as pesto and some as whole leaves), lemon balm, parsley, sage, oregano, thyme and calendula flowers.  Bounder just loves to be held.  HA!  (More on the paint and 4x4 in a future post.)

Onions are moved to the craft room after drying outdoors for a few days.  They will cure here a few weeks and then move to the root cellar.  On the shelves and in the paper bags are harvested dried beans (lima, black-eyed pea, tiger eye and agate soybeans) plus dill seed heads for planting next year. 

We just planted winter greens, spinach and a last or second to last batch of cilantro in our cold frames.  It's so hard to believe we are to this point again!