Harvest Doesn’t End With The Produce

 I can say with 100% certainty… this has been the best harvest year yet for our fruits, veggies, herbs, and flowers! It was a year of almost perfect weather conditions… save for an extremely hot and dry July, and a bit of a drought happening as we speak.  And still… the garden is giving.My faithful gardening companion… and luckily, this fellow doesn’t steal the produce like his brother does!Each day, we harvest peppers, kale, sugar peas, cherry tomatoes and occasionally some Roma tomatoes that are quickly turned into sauce.  There are still lots of fresh herbs and flowers as well.We’ve eaten a few of our sweet potatoes. however, they have been quite small this year – growth stunted by that wascally wabbit that ate the vines down to nubbins.  The vines have regenerated, however, I noticed yesterday that they are once again being nibbled.  I will leave the rest of the sweet potatoes alone until the first frost, in hopes that they still have some time to grow a bit.  If not, small sweet potatoes are better than no sweet potatoes, right?   (A little personal life philosophy, there… being grateful for whatever comes my way… no matter how small.)Moll always comes from the barn to join me in the garden.She shamelessly asks for a belly rub.As the title said, harvest doesn’t end with the produce.  Gathering seeds for next year’s garden is important as well.  And so, I’ve been spending a little time doing just that.  Each one of these dry Bells of Ireland has four little tri-cornered seeds.  I am planning an all green flower bed next summer and these will definitely be included!  Most likely that garden will also have pops of a single complimentary color (somewhere in the red range since red is directly across from green on the color wheel). I’m gathering seeds and organizing them in packets so that I can start next summer’s garden in the greenhouse at the end of winter.  Gardeners always think ahead, I believe.  We have one foot in this year’s garden and the other foot in next year’s garden.  We spend the grey months in dreams of color… dreaming of what the following year’s gardens will look like.The couple loofahs that I have harvested were filled with seeds, and they are drying so that I can use them next year.Every few days I am able to harvest a large handful of calendula blossoms.  Then I dry them in our food dehydrator and store them with other herbs in our basement larder, for use in soaps and salves throughout the coming year.The current soap situation looks like this (7 different varieties)…These will be ready for use slightly before mid-October.  The round bars in the front are lemongrass gardener’s soap.  They contain poppy seeds that act as a very mild abrasive to help loosen garden dirt from one’s hands.To answer a question from yesterday… the vines growing on the trellis in front of my shed are hyacinth bean vines (not to be consumed!)They tolerate any type of soil but prefer full sun.  This is another plant from which I will harvest seeds for next summer’s plantings.(I may even have enough to share.)Well, I guess this wraps up our summer posts.  The next time we chat, Autumn will have arrived and begun unpacking his suitcase.  I can hardly wait to see his colorful clothes!  Have a lovely weekend enjoying the last of Summer.PS:  about that unique spider photo on yesterday’s blog.  It is not carrying an egg sac behind it, but rather that entire structure is part of its body.  It’s called a Spined Micrathena!  (Thanks Frissy for your detective work!!)(and Denny144, you called it!!)