August and September Harvest Totals

August and September Food Harvest Totals

Asterisk denotes foraged harvest.  Includes medicinal herbs.

• *Apricots: 12 617 g
• Basil: 118 g
• Beans (Borlotti): 16 g
• Beans (Turkey Craw): 590 g
• Beets (mixed): 36 g
• Buckwheat: 87 g
• Dill: 30 g
• Carrots (Danvers): 436 g
• Celery (Pink Plume): 65 g
• Chamomile: 21 g
• *Crabapple (Pacific): 542 g
• Hyssop: 21 g
• Lemon Balm: 15 g
• Mint (Chocolate): 19 g
• Mint (English): 30 g
• Mint (Peppermint): 27 g
• Mint (Pineapple): 28 g
• Mint (Spearmint): 27 g
• Parsley: 7 g
• Pepper (Alma Paprika): 13 g
• Pepper (Aurora): 2 g
• Pepper (Jalapeno): 59 g
• Pepper (Pepperoncini): 17 g
• *Plantain (broad leaf): 10 g
• Rhubarb: 30 g
• Rosemary: 30 g
• Sage: 1 g
• *Sumac: 304 g
• Squash Blossoms: 117 g
• Squash (Mystery): 4597 g
• Strawberries (Alpine): 2 g
• Tarragon: 20 g
• Tomato (Cherokee Purple): 26 g
• Tomato (Hartman's Yellow Gooseberry): 28 g
• Tomato (Italian Heirloom): 111 g
• Tomato (Lemon Drop): 51 g
• Tomato (Moonglow): 171 g
• Tomato (Velvet Red): 33 g
• *Yarrow: 7 g

Total: 20.3 kg

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August and September Seed Saving Totals

• Garlic (Red Russian): 96 g
• Onion (bunching): 1 g
• Peas (Green Arrow): 63 g
• Peas (Amish Snap): 21 g
• Radish (China Rose): 11 g
• Sweet Pea (Heritage Grandiflora Mix): 1 g
• Sweet Pea (Old Spice Mix): 1 g

Total: 194 g

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Items Gathered for Home Decor

Asterisk denotes foraged items.

• Candytuft Seed Pods
• Field Poppy Seed Heads
• *Silver Willow Branches
• *Rosehips on Branches
• *Sunflower Blossoms

Grow Write Guild No. 12 - Fall is Here

Temperatures falling

Colours change to red and orange

Autumn approaches.

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

In the course of my gardening and foraging journey I often find myself in conversation with people who are curious about what I do, and why I do it.  People are interested these days in what it looks like to get back to to the land, and to rediscover traditional skills.  That is a good thing!  I love having these conversations, but at times I find myself feeling like I am defending my gardening choices, or explaining why I am not bringing in huge harvests every day.

My garden is small.  It's bigger than you would think I'd be able to have, but it's not going to be something that we could ever live off.  We have built up raised beds in almost all of the available space, but I have given a good half of it to perennials - herbs, a few berry bushes, bunching onions, rhubarb, and things like that - and most of these are fairly recent transplants so they aren't giving me huge yields.  Another factor in my harvests is that I have prioritized late harvest vegetables this year.  I'm growing dry beans, winter squash, popcorn, cabbage, and things like that.  I'm also not in the greatest spot for tomatoes (although I still try) so mine come in quite late.  Same story with the peppers.  I have some ideas for how I can get a better jump start on these next season, but the fact of the matter is on top of all of these considerations gardening is always unpredictable.  One day I would like to do this in a way that it would support our family, but for now I am mainly growing things that are interesting, or hard to find at the local farmers market. 

I think also some of these questions represent the disconnect people have with their food sources these days.  Growing what we eat takes time, space, and knowledge that most people don't have anymore.  When my neighbour asks why with "such a big garden" I am bringing in these small harvests, I know she isn't insulting my gardening skills, rather the knowledge of what it takes to produce food has been lost.

I'm not sure what the overall point of this post was, but I was wondering how those of you reading feel about this topic.  My past couple of years of gardening and foraging have been so eye opening.  Every new season brings challenges and discoveries, and I am constantly amazed by everything I am learning about creation.  Leave me a comment if you have any thoughts.  What are the challenges you face with choosing more of a homesteading kind of life?  Are people baffled or mystified by the choices you are making?

July Harvest Totals

August Harvest Totals

Asterisk denotes foraged harvest (in the wilderness or the neighbourhood).

• *Arnica: 55 g
• Basil: 6 g
• Beets (Chioggia): 42 g
• Buckwheat: 23 g
• Carrots (Danvers): 864 g
• Chamomile: 17 g
• Garlic Scapes: 9 g
• Lemon Balm: 12 g
• Lettuce (Drunken Woman): 13 g
• Lettuce (Vulcan): 38 g
• Mint (Peppermint): 11 g
• Mint (Pineapple): 2 g
• Nootka Rose Petals: 13 g
• Onion (Welsh): 213 g
• *Orach: 496 g
• Peas (Amish Snap): 85 g
• Peas (Blue Podded Soup): 30 g
• Peas (Green Arrow): 445 g
• Raspberries: 59 g
• Squash Blossoms: 5 g
• Tarragon: 3 g
• Yarrow: 8 g

TOTAL: 2.449 kg

This month was lower than the last seeing as we were away for more than half of it.  Some of these are quite minuscule harvests from the garden, but I am glad that I was able to forage a few different things.  Still not as much as I hoped, because unfortunately the Kamloops area is blanketed in wildfire smoke and has been for about a month.  We've had air quality health advisories out asking us to stay inside and if we do go out to limit any strenuous activity.  Not all my foraging is 'strenuous', but a lot of the time I was with Little Forager, and I really didn't want to expose him to a lot of smoke, so we mostly chilled inside with Thomas the Tank Engine. 

I am really happy about how my carrots are doing.  I have never had very good luck with them before, but this year they look really great!  My garlic isn't in the total for this month, but I did pull them in July.  I had to wait for them to cure before I was able to weigh them.  There's a picture below because I still wanted to include them in some way.  I also have a photo of one of my alpine strawberries because I haven't really been weighing them since I only get one or two per day and usually Little Forager gobbles them right up before we even get inside, so here's a photo so they can be included in this month's post as well.

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Also just a note that you can now find me on Bloglovin' so Follow my blog with Bloglovin! 

June Harvest Totals

June Harvest Totals

Asterisk denotes foraged harvests.

• *Asparagus: 2643 g
• Basil (Thai): 31 g
• Beets (Chioggia): 29 g
• Carrots (Danvers): 47 g
• Chamomile: 19 g
• *Daisies: 51 g
• Dill: 6 g
• Evergreen Tips: 47 g
• Haskap Berries: 61 g
• Lemon Balm: 12 g
• Lettuce (Drunken Woman): 46 g
• Lettuce (Vulcan): 6 g
• Mint (Chocolate): 7 g
• Mint (Peppermint): 7 g
• Mint (Pineapple): 18 g
• Mint (Spearmint): 40 g
• Mixed Greens: 813 g
• Onion (Welsh): 120 g
• Peas (Amish Snap): 442 g
• Peas (Green Arrow): 413 g
• Raspberry Leaves: 49 g
• *Red Clover: 44 g
• Rhubarb: 912g
• *Saskatoon Berries: 1445 g
• Strawberries: 109 g
• Tarragon: 39 g
• *Yarrow: 117 g

Total: 7.573 kg

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This month was overall more productive than last season, but there were some things noticeably underperformed compared to last year at this time (I'm looking at you, Peas!).  I foraged more this year so far and I am really happy about that.  Even though my strawberry plants were new this year they still yielded more than my old plants.  I was expecting greater herb harvests, but since most things died over the winter I was starting with new plants for most things.  Every spring I keep thinking my rhubarb plant is dead, but it did really well this year so far!  There is more coming up now too so I might get another harvest in before the weather gets too hot!  I was hoping to grab more evergreen tips, but sadly I missed them completely at home, and then only managed to gather what my pockets could hold when we wandered around the McConnell Lake trail.  That trail is amazing, by the way.  If you are local I highly recommend taking a walk through there!  I am also already doing far better with gathering Saskatoons this season, and that makes me really happy!