Every other night now we walk the garden to see what needs to be picked and harvested to preserve.  Soon it will be every night.  A few potatoes here and there, some lettuce, peas, broccoli, turnips, and cauliflower is what we get these days. We watch the squash, cabbage, tomatoes, and peppers that will be ready soon.  A few of the fall items are planted, but we need to make room for more.  There are some places where we will tuck in things.  We have to consider which items need safe places to winter over. 

Carrots will be thinned in the next few days and blanched and frozen for winter soups and stock.  They need to make room for the others to grow.  By cutting only the main broccoli crown we have gotten good side shoot growth and I continue to harvest the same plants.  Every other night we blanch and freeze a few more packages.  I choose to freeze mine in 2-cup portions with a vacuum sealer.  The bags are labeled on the top above the seal so that they can be easily reused later when the seal is cut away.  The are progressively used for smaller and smaller items.  Having just blanched vegetables stored in them, they are easily recycled.

Herbs are being cut weekly and dried a little at a time – tarragon, mint, lemon balm, sage, and thyme this week.  It changes each week.  I dry these on their stems and then take the leaves off when they are dry.  I store these in recycled mayonnaise jars that aren’t safe for canning and put a recycled mayonnaise jar lid on top.  We’ll keep about 1 quart of each culinary herb on hand for winter.  Many herbs in my herb garden will be available in winter, but a pinch of this and a smattering of that in winter cooking is easier and more likely when dried herbs are available in the cabinet.  Large quantities of lavender were cut, are now drying, and will be available for winter projects.

Medicinal herb quantities are stored based on need.  I have a ½ gallon of plantain dried.  I am working on feverfew this week.  I also need to visit the river bottom to see about some nettles.  Elderberries are my must have, but that is still many months off.  I have had great success with making elderberry cough syrup that is preventative.  I extract the elderberry juice from the dried elderberries with 100 proof vodka.  This takes several weeks.  I then mix it with a good amount of honey until it is a syrup.  I add some homemade apple cider vinegar and some echinacea and goldenseal tincture.  A tablespoon of it stops my sore throats from progressing in to a full-blown cold.  I have been very pleased.

The heat is supposed to taper off a little this week so we will try and get the fall garden planted.  Already planted are broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, beets, and carrots.  We need to plant peas, spinach, lettuce, onions, and potatoes.  Onions will winter over and we’re going to try for a second harvest of potatoes this year.  It is fun to experiment. 

Already thoughts and plans for next  year’s garden float in our head, but the reality is that there are nearly 4 more months of tending to and harvesting from this garden ahead of us as we enjoy God’s bounty. 

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