By Tenley Nelson

July and August are frenetic months. Saturday mornings are for harvesting produce to send out to McCarthy to be turned into restaurant fare. The rest of the week is weeding, watering, homestead harvesting and chores. This summer has slipped by quietly and quickly.

The beets began to really hit their stride the week of July 19th and I have been harvesting steadily every week since. Four succession plantings seems to be a good fit for our zone. I butchered the meat chickens July 25th and was glad to begin culling the annual livestock (while not actually enjoying the butchering process.) It is a lot of work to do as one person, four times as fast with two. But butchering continues to be a farm activity in which the kids firmly refuse to involve themselves.

The farm has been a little chaotic this season with the pigs, ducks, chickens, turkeys, and horses. With the horses back to work at hunting camp and the meat chickens in freezer camp, the daily chores have eased a bit. Currently the turkeys need to be butchered along with the emerging drakes (I am just now able to tell who is a boy with their maturing drake feathers) and a few persistently broody chickens.

Fluffy, the single duckling from midsummer, has finally decided that he/she is indeed a duck and not a human and is living with the big ducks at 6 weeks old. The first three nights we attempted to keep the duckling outside, Fluffy escaped the garden fence to peep frantically at our door asking to come back inside for the night (which we allowed). But now happy as a duck rather than human, Fluffy has turned his/her back on us. I would miss the duck company except we have a new kitten, Apollo, who has turned the domestic pet hierarchy in our home upside down, so we have plenty going on inside and out.

I have had spectacular flowers in the garden for the pollinators (and me) thanks to the July heat this year. The poppies, peonies, lemon gem marigold, phacelia, nasturtium, yarrow and buckwheat flowers have been busy with insects buzzing about. The hard August rains and frost nips have knocked many of these back from their peak, but I still have a few poppies, sweet peas, nasturtium (in the tunnels) and strawflowers hanging in. I think my sunflowers will be too late to bloom this year but that is entirely my fault as I started them too late. Same with the calendula, so I dug up 5 plants, potted them up and put them in the greenhouse in the hopes of harvesting some September flowers.

Tomatoes and cucumbers have been a challenge in the greenhouse. It was so hot in July that the female cucumber fruits died on the vine. They are recovering and have fruits on the vines now, but growth is slower as it gets chillier. The indeterminate tomatoes look good but are ripening ever so slowly. I have been stingy with my greenhouse firewood as I have only a small supply this year but think I will need to keep the temperature warmer to get a good harvest.

The pepper plants are covered in green fruits but also seem to be ripening very slowly. At least I do not have slugs in the greenhouse this year! The low tunnel determinate tomatoes in the market garden have done far better. So far, I have 4 gallons of ripe whole tomatoes frozen that I will turn into sauce later this fall and many more ripening up. Freezing whole tomatoes intended for sauce later is a great time saving trick in the summer (especially if you use a food mill to remove the seeds and skins when you thaw them).

We have had two light frosts so far, one on July 31st when it just barely hit 31° and 30° at 4 A.M. on August 22 which nipped the tops of the potatoes and all the buckwheat flowers. We had covered everything we could with frost blankets. The voles are very happy to have the extra cover to munch away while the hawks cannot see them.

Speaking of voles, I had a funny experience when emptying the vole traps. I had made a little vole pile in the middle of my main garden walkway to move out of the garden later. I got distracted by some other chore and looked for them the next day to take them away. Gone. So, I left the next collection out too to see what would happen. I don’t know if it is hawks or owls, but somebody is enjoying the vole buffet!

The raspberries really started producing as we came into August, and I have been attempting to diligently pick every other day. The sparrows do not seem to be hitting them as hard this year and we have over 10 gallons in freezer and lots in our bellies. Production is slowing down as we hit the end of the month, but it has been a spectacular berry year with large, sweet berries.

I finally harvested the garlic on August 17th. Usually, I harvest in early August. Most of the varieties were spot on but a few new types I had tried this year were over mature. The garlic was late up this year and behind on producing scapes, so I was surprised that some were overgrown. The wet weather complicates garlic harvest but with rain forever in the forecast I went ahead and pulled them, rinsed off the soil and hung them up to cure in our guest cabin. I am hopeful they will dry down in time and that I will have enough large cloves to replant this September.

The carrot season is beginning and soon it will be time to empty all those beds too and put them up for sale. My days in the next weeks will be occupied with blanching and freezing, drying, and canning to preserve our food for the winter.

An autumn chill is in the air and the willows are losing more of their verdant greenery every day. Yellow leaves are appearing and heralding that fall is here! I do love this time of year with the overflowing totes of vegetables, fresh meat, and a nip of cold.

From my garden to yours, happy harvesting.

More from Tenley Nelson:

May in the Garden

June in the Garden

More local articles on farm and food:

Getting More Out of Your Raspberries

Harvesting Birch Syrup in the Copper Valley