Todays harvest

Wow, has it ever cooled down. last week we were all sweltering, and dare I say it, complaining about the heat. Today it is cold and grey.
So far the temps have stayed well above freezing, and not meant to go down below 6'C at night over the next few days, so hopefully the garden will keep producing for a while longer.

 

The tomatoes are all starting to ripen up. I think it is time to make a big batch of relish.

The summer squash which have been a little slow this year are finally producing steadily. these are yellow crookneck.

The edible podded peas have slowed down, but mostly because so many of them got too big to eat, and got left on the vine to ripen for seed and soups. I am growing sugar snap peas and sno peas.

The bush beans finished producing a while back and are now ripening for seed and dry beans for cooking. The purple podded beans are coming into their own, and I am able to harvest several large handfuls each day.

Still in the garden I have pak choi, and Chinese cabbage. Also some cilantro that has started to go to seed. I'll harvest the mature seeds for cooking. The basil needs to be harvested and frozen, and there is still lots of parsley and other perennial herbs. The winter squash needs a few more weeks to mature.

At this time of the year I just hope for a few more weeks of warmish weather, so we can keep on harvesting the last of the crops.



Todays harvest

Here is some of the harvest for tonight. Lots of beans and peas, and the first of the summer squash.

 

I have started to make sour dough bread. I have been making bread in a breadmaker for along time now. Recently I started to make it out of all spelt flour, as that is meant to be more healthy to eat.

That made nice bread.

But I have avoided making the even more healthy sour dough bread because,I wasn't sure it would work in the breadmaker(and I love my breadmaker).Since we returned to Canada in June, I have been playing around with making the sour dough starter and then making the bread. Everything I read suggested that making sour dough bread in a breadmaker wasn't that successful. With my first attempts,I fussed around, with the breadmaker hoping for the best. It turned out great from the start, and now I just throw the ingredients into the breadmaker as I used to for yeast bread, and have had consistently good results. I'll try and get my recipes up here for the starter and the bread.

How and why I garden

I love to eat and I love to garden, it's that simple.
I don't want to eat pesticides or herbicides, so I don't use them.
Because of the way we live I garden in four very diverse climates. In Canada(zone 4) I have a short season garden-2 1/2 months frost free if I am lucky, followed by very cold winters. In New Zealand I garden in a mild temperate climate-almost frost free all year round, and in Thailand I am gardening in a tropical climate.
Most of my garden practises are based on a permaculture approach. That is I try to be sustainable and build in lots of diversity which cushions me against crop failures and pest invasion.
My gardens aren't big, but there is always something to eat in them no matter what.
I try and eat in season, and according to the country I'm gardening in.
I have compost bins and worm farms on the go, and every now and then spend enough time in one place to even keep chickens
.
Here is the garden on June 29th a few weeks after arriving back in Canada, just weeks after the last frost of the season.

 

and here it is again today, 1 month later.

 

 

I am eating lettuces, arugula,peas-both sugar snap and sno pea,beans,summer squash,pak choi,rhubarb,basil,chives, parsley.

The lettuce and parsley self seeded from last fall,so that gave me a good start.