Monday Musings

  Mid-August: my garden has reached its peak. We have enjoyed the fruits of its abundance: crisp salads, tasty sauces, and grilled produce. Now, it is time to store up for the cool fall and cold winter months ahead. Over the last couple of weeks, I have blanched and frozen excess green beans and freezer-bagged beautiful blueberries. I cooked up a large pot of pasta sauce, its ingredients gleaned from my raised beds: four types of tomatoes, garlic, onions, basil, oregano, and parsley. We feasted on a portion, and I placed the remainder in the freezer. Last weekend, I tackled the start of the root vegetable harvest. I began by pulling up the four rows of carrots: two of Nantes carrots, the other two mixed color. Four large buckets of carrot greens topped off my rotating compost bins. I  packed the carrots, layered in fine pine sawdust, into wire bins lined with burlap . They will overwinter in our unheated basement. The red and white onions were prolific, yielding dozens of plum...