August in the Garden
Photo by Tenley Nelson.
By Tenley Nelson- Wood Frog Farm
The riches of August in Alaska can be almost embarrassing. Berries dripping off bushes, salmon in the rivers, produce in the garden, and many more farm and wild harvests. It can be hard to keep up and to remember to take time to enjoy the fact that it is not yet winter when buried in all the things to do and put up for the looming winter.
This year was really no exception. August felt crazy and I did not get enough sleep. Every morning I woke up still tired and had to remind myself that I would feel rested in the winter and wishing for this sun, these projects, and this wonderful food. August is a time for doing and do we did.
Salmon was filleted and frozen, smoked, or canned or both. Meat chickens were butchered and frozen. The three roosters from the eggs we hatched in April joined them as well as the three Tom turkeys who had been such enjoyable and amusing summer companions. Now only eleven layer hens remain, and they have started providing us with adorable pullet eggs in light brown, dark brown, and several shade of blue.
The red and golden beets did well this year and as I planted 4 succession plantings, they lasted from mid-July to now. At the end of August, I still have another planting that is almost ready to pick.
I pulled the garlic harvest on the 23rd, almost 3 weeks later than usual which is not surprising with the late spring we have had and while they are not all big heads, there are many gorgeous ones, and I am looking forward to baking garlic in a pan underneath roasting chicken. It is my favorite farm gown meal paired with some roasted vegetables.
The green beans were spectacular all month providing enough to freeze, can, sell, and share with friends. I have never harvested so many, easily 100 pounds total this season from a 90 foot double row. The peas and lettuces are still providing and the scallions this year have been nearly perfect except for those with onion root maggots. Fortunately, there were far more good ones than bad.
The wood frogs have been abundant in and out of the garden and the bumblebees are enjoying the calendula, clover, marigold, sweet alyssum, and flowering brassicas.
Yellow jackets have claimed the last of the raspberries and I am fine with sharing as picking gets challenging when it is so wet. We harvested more honeyberries in the early part of the month and the last of the strawberries. I am looking forward to next year as the strawberry plants look beautifully vigorous.
Vinegar scents waft through the kitchen as I can up dilly beans. Jars of cucumbers ferment on the counter. The freezer is filling with bags of berries, chopped scallions, and green beans. There is garden clean up do while harvesting and the compost pile is growing bigger.
Even though I am taking things a little slower this year both by design and due to crop failure (you cannot put up what did not grow!), there seems to be a copious amount of food coming out of the garden. The zucchini strongly produced all month and I have given away more than I have processed.
The tomatoes are abundant and growing both in the greenhouse and the low tunnel. There are peas to pick and celery to freeze. The carrots never were thinned so they will be small this year, but they sure taste delicious! It is almost time to dig potatoes.
Another month passed where I did not make much progress on the “summer” projects. Rain has hampered me in some ways, and I just have not made the time to get these things done. I guess September is the month to finally get to them. Fingers crossed that this warm fall weather holds (no killing frost in August!) and we get some stretches of dry weather.
From my garden to yours, happy autumn!
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