HARVEST DAY - MORE PREPPING FOR VACATION

 

volunteer sunflowers

We love our volunteer sunflowers.  They are abundant and robust... and very, very, tall!  It is so much fun to see them pop up in the most unlikely spots and grow and grow and grow.  They definitely bring a smile to my face everytime I see them.

so far, so good

Remember those pesky irrigation leaks?  So far they are holding.  We walk the yard every day to stay on top of them and have been extra vigilant as we prepare to leave on vacation.  It is a bit difficult to leave this time of year but it has been a long time since we've taken a vacation and are really looking forward to the road trip to visit friends.

anticipation

First, we have to do a fair bit of harvesting and processing of vegetables.

 

Kale before...

 

...during...

...with a little help form Xena and Louie...

 

and after this week's harvest

YUM!

Chocolate cherry and sungold

assorted early tomatoes

We are so happy to have an early tomato harvest to bring with us to share and enjoy on our vacation.  We hope to come back to enough to think about canning soon.

slug invasion on tomatillo plants

 

organic pest control

 

Our tomatillo plants have recovered from their transplant, survived the late freeze and were looking the best I've ever seen them look.  They have an abundance of fruit set but..... what are all those dark spots?  SLUGS!  Who knew we could have slugs in the desert!?!?  They are covered with little 1/3 - 1/2 inch brown slugs which are devouring the plants.  After some online research, it seems the best slug eradication methods are picking them off by hand (pretty hard when they are so small and slimy) and the old tried and true beer swimming pools.  Fingers crossed this will help.

a few more zucchini

Zucchini are slowly coming along.  I foresee many zucchini pizza crusts in our future. 

Our beautiful onion harvest of a couple of weeks ago has been curing on wire racks in our garage.  They are finally ready to be cleaned, trimmed and stored.  Jim tackled this while I harvested kale. 

Onions are cured

Our garden chores are done and we hit the road tomorrow morning.  We will miss the garden but have a great house sitter lined up to take care of the chickens and garden and all in our absence.

see you in two weeks