A Look into Fall 2012

Summer slid quietly into Fall and we barely noticed the changes until late October. The gardens at Heart's Ease Cottage were still lush and beautiful well into November. Our "May Rose", (dubbed so since it blooms in profusion in May and then to a lesser degree again in the Fall), surprised us with a second full flush of blooms in September. It was actually still blooming in December...
This Fall was a very busy time for us. Da works in the elections process and this year was a "Presidential", so craziness began in late August and didn't end until early December. Even with the long hours of work and the endless demands of a Presidential election, we managed to get a Fall garden planted and took some day trips, (usually on Shabbat, since that was the only day Da was guaranteed not to be working).

 I spent most of the Fall preserving the harvest. This year we have been eating vegan/raw,  so "preserving the harvest" was done a little differently. Usually I can the tomatoes, beans and other summer veggies, but this year the only water bath canning I did was Bread and Butter pickles. Instead of canning, most of the produce was dehydrated at low temperatures, (105 degrees), to preserve the enzymes and keep it as close to raw as possible. Dehydrating the produce from our garden also makes it possible to package it for long term storage. In the coming days I hope to devote one day a week to blogging about Pantry Keeping. I am very excited to share the concept with you and give some tips on managing your food supplies for use today and to put-by for the future.

 Our first hard frost usually comes around November 15. This gives us a nice long season to enjoy the last of our Summer vegetables. Here in North Carolina the Summers are very hot and we get little or no rain. Tomatoes, eggplant, okra and other heat loving vegetable do fine, but peppers are another story... peppers need to be planted in April/May in order to have their roots systems well developed before the heat sets in, but they will languish in the heat and drop their bloom all summer with nary a pepper on the bush. Once the heat of Summer has passed and the rains start again, the peppers that did nothing all Summer, will be full of blooms and the bushes will be enormous! The peppers don't seem to mind the short days of Fall and will produce more than we can eat or share. Before the frost took the plants the last week of November the peppers had grown to 6 feet and were loaded with pepper of all colors and sizes...it was quite a sight! This year I actually  got the last of the peppers picked before the frost got them, so I had  peppers lining every surface in my kitchen. Since there was no room in the fridge for all them, I decided the best thing to do was dehydrate them. It is really amazing how what covered 20 linear feet of counter, could 24 hours later fit in a quart sized canning jar!

A still life of our late November peppers

The last of the tomatoes and okra and a glimpse of the Bread and Butter pickles.

Beds of Detroit beets and Cos Romaine planted in September will be ready for use in November.

The last of the Spring lettuce was allowed to go to seed so that we can save the seed for next year.

A project in the bathroom that was begun in March has steadily progressed over the Summer and into the Fall. I think we will finally be able to call it a done deed by the end of March 2013! Things always take longer than you think they will, and this year has been full of projects, so it is a good thing we can manage with one bathroom out of service!

One of the day trips that we squeezed in this Fall was to Hanging Rock Park. There are actually several falls, not just one. This one was my favorite, I loved the way the rocks frame area around the falls.

We spent a Sabbath afternoon at Hanging Rock, hiking from one falls to the next, stopping for a picnic and to spend some time reading aloud from a book we were reading together.

Oh and  just one more photo... Tagg says "It's late Mom and I need to go to bed", so I guess I should take a hint and say goodnight. Until next time!

Spring At Heart's Ease Cottage

Spring came in February this year, now it has decided to be Winter in late April. We have had temps dipping into the low 30's, which doesn't do much for my warm weather crops like tomatoes. I never plant tomatoes before May 1, even though our last frost date is April 15, because I don't trust the weather to do what it is supposed to do. Unfortunately I had  tomatoes that I had started indoors out for the day to start hardening them off and I forgot about them. The temperature over night dropped to 31 degrees. When I remembered them in the morning I went outside to find my poor little baby tomatoes had withered with the cold..sigh. I just have too many things going on at one time these days... I will start new tomatoes from seed for my specialty tomatoes, but I will have to go ahead and by some flats of Romas so my canning tomatoes can go in the ground May 1.
The gardens this Spring have been beautiful and as I write this my rose arbor is bursting forth with hundreds of pale pink blossoms. I will take some photos tomorrow, when it stops raining. For now, here are some photos of what Spring has been like here at the Cottage:

 The azalea bushes in front of my house were spectacular this Spring! These bushes are about 20 years old. Last year we planted 90 more azaleas in what used to be the front yard.

We now call  it the "Bird Garden", since the birds have come by the droves to hang out in the bushes. The new bushes haven't bloomed yet since they are a later variety, but I will be sure to post some pics when they bloom.

This little bunny fountain is playing flower pot this year while I rework the garden it usually resides in.

I try to plant some Heart's Ease every year, as a nod to our beloved Cottage. The weather here turns warm so early in the year that they quickly go to seed, but I enjoy every minute of the time they are with us.

Da spent a lot of the late summer last year reclaiming the blackberry trellis' that turned into a thicket of unruly brambles while we were living in Costa Rica. All his hard work paid off this Spring. The canes are absolutely covered with blossoms and newly set berries.

The thumb-sized sweet berries will come ripe in July, and will be eaten with home made granola for breakfast, will accompany other seasonal fruits in smoothies, and will be made into some mouthwatering  cobblers. We will freeze some, make some into jam and best of all we will get to share them with neighbors and friends.

                    Friskie enjoys a walk through the iris beds with me.

                    This Iris smells like lemon Chiffon Pie!

                              Granny Smith Apple blossoms.

    Our resident Anole spends the afternoon napping on the deck rail. 

   Here he is showing off his colors for any sweet young thing that might be watching...

Patrick's Rose, better known as David Austen's "Graham Thomas", has bloomed a month early. The early Spring weather convinced everything in my yard to bloom way before its time.

This rose was damaged in a wind storm last year and I thought it was going to die... It came back with determination and has graced the deck with its citrus scented blooms since late March.

   Black Seeded Simpson, Lolla Rosa, Mesclun mix and Romaine lettuces, will be in the salad bowl this Spring, along with beet greens, new onions and Cherry Belle Radishes. In the bed to the left of the lettuce, Jersey Wakefield Cabbages and Cherry Belle Radishes grow as companions. The radishes will be ready for harvest before the cabbages get large enough to compete for the sunshine.

Lolla Rosa is a compact curly leaved lettuce that is cut and come again, I have harvested most of this bed twice and I will still be able to cut it once or twice more before I need to replant with a warm weather variety.

At the time of this photo the romaine still had a few weeks before it was mature. As of this week it will be ready for harvest.
Well, I'd better draw this post to a close, but before I do I will give you a sneak peek of my newest garden project... My newly renovated kitchen herb garden.

My established herb garden was overcome by couching grass and some insidious form of weed that looks like Artemesia but with a very aggressive nature. So I have finally dug out all the weeds, sifted the soil and am now I am replanting my surviving herbs, as well as adding many new ones. I will post more on the herb garden another day.

                  May you all be blessed with a simple life!