Thankfully, I haven’t seen a bunny in the garden this week. Whew! But there is something else eating my fall seedlings and I think it might be crickets. There are black field crickets everywhere in the garden after it gets dark. I killed a few by hand but the numbers are huge this year. I can’t wait until I can let the chickens in the garden! Until then, Each fall seedling I’ve planted, I surrounded it with a plastic cup. We’ll see if that does anything!
In the garden:
Harvesting cucumbers, peppers, cow peas, watermelon, lemon squash, butternut squash, tomatoes, herbs, and green beans.
Indoor Seedlings:
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I started a bunch of fall seedlings in soil blocks because it was 90 degrees all this week and too hot for many of those seedlings to germinate.
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In mini soil blocks: Black Radish, vates kale, scarlet kale, tatsoi, purple bok choy, yellow heart bok choy, mizuna, rouge d’hiver lettuce, winter density lettuce, dill, cylindra beets, and cilantro.
In the kitchen:
In an effort to achieve my goals to eat more local food, I bought a bushel full of sunbelt grapes to preserve for winter. It ended up becoming juice, fruit leather, jam, and soon to be jelly (hoping to finish tonight). It’s not really a whole winters worth of grapes, but I’m not a big believer in juice and I already have a lot of jam. Option #2 was to buy some grapes to freeze but unfortunately, I already missed the boat of the seedless grapes which I’m bummed about!
Preserved-
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6 quarts of Grape Juice
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3 Pints Grape Jam, made of just grape pulp, lemon juice, and maple syrup. It turned out delicious by the way!
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10 trays worth of fruit leather
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I also dehydrated 3 lemon squash and a few tomatoes.
