Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Absences and busy scheduals

Greetings to those people who think that perhaps we have fallen off the face of the earth! Things have been extraordinarily busy here as we have been house/land hunting and the kiddos have started their extracurricular activities, and me and the Mr have both been ill. Despite all of those issues we have had some huge self-sufficiency gains in the last month.

The tomato harvest is pretty well over, unless the new sproutlets that have decided to bloom out again does so in a hurry before it frosts. Peppers, I am swimming in them. I picked a little over two pounds of jalapeno peppers today.  We have gotten a few cantaloupe from our one lonely little vine and the poor lonely okra plant that was planted has been trying to make up for it's lack of having a friend near by.  My herbs are making sure that my house smells constantly like I am cooking as I am using fresh in everything and still having to dehydrate to keep up with the bounty that the basil, mints, rosemary (I thought they were supposed to be slow growers?) and parsley have been producing. The parsley had dropped off around the end of the hot spell mostly due to an absolutely horrible aphid infestation that I had that I thought had killed the parsley, my pepper plants, and my kale off completely...Nah, just stunted there growth for about a month and now all of them are doing well. Kale and Swiss Chard are as beautiful as ever now and prolific as well.

We haven't dug the sweet potatoes yet, but I sit and let my mouth water just thinking about it every time I go out and see how far and fast my sweet potatoes have grown. Winter squash is in the ground and doing well and started blooming this week. I hope to get a few to put up at least for this winter as it always makes wonderful comfort foods when it is cold.

I do have a cautionary tale however for whoever may be interested...Luffa gourds should not ever be planted where you want anything else to grow. I made the mistake of planting them in my raised beds this year. They have grown so fast in the last month that they have taken over my yard, my raised beds, a swimming pool ladder and have encroached into my traditional bed as well despite many attempts to keep it cut back. Now if you have a porch or trellis, or even a gazebo that you want to have a beautiful green leafy shade screen on, these things would be the way to go. They thrive in the heat, and have been really enjoying this fall weather too. I think next year they will be planted around my front porch to use as a privacy screen and shade for the summer months. And I only planted 4 seeds total btw. Just to give a little perspective.

So many things to do yet before tucking everything in for winter, but so many beautiful things have happened this year that I can't help but start thinking ahead to next spring and beyond. Hopefully I will have more time in the coming weeks to keep things going here a bit better than I have done in the past months.

Blogging seems to be a serious business and although this one is focused mainly on my gardening, there is so much more in our lives right now than the garden. I have tried to keep things here as politically correct and focused on the gardening part of our lives as possible but when I go back and read the things I have posted previously, they all fall flat. One dimensional slices of our lives that make us sound clinical, boring, and dull. We are anything but! I hope you will give me a chance to show you all more about us as I work on opening myself, and our family up a bit more to share with you and yours. For now though, while I have the house to myself, there is a bed of peppers out there mocking me with their full plants.

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