Harvest Time in New England

There is crispness in the air, and nightly warnings of potential frost…it must be harvest time in New England. The garden did very well this year especially the tomatoes, lettuce, snow peas, beats, carrots, and potatoes. The cucumbers were pretty much non-existent this year (we got one small one), and the cabbage and the broccoli just didn’t really form heads. The squash production was good but definitely not a lot for the number of plants we had in the ground. Our own produce combined with that which we could find at local farmers markets yielded us a nice canning season of tomatoes, cabbage and beets. We still have tomatoes on the vine and carrots and beets in the ground, but with the temperatures plummeting to near 34 at night, I think at least the tomatoes done. We are hoping to over-winter the carrots and beets just to see how they do, but we need to get a good mulch layer on top of them before it really gets cold.

Have all of you gone apple picking yet? Now is prime time especially for the mid and late season apples. We went a couple weeks ago and were able to get a wonderful early season apple called the ‘Red Gravenstein’. It is a very crisp apple that is quite sweet, but not overly sugary. We didn’t need any more apple sauce since we still had some canned up from last year, so we decided to dry the majority of them. We are still in the process of dehydrating them, but thus far we have about 8 smaller jars of dried apples which make a wonderful and healthy snack. So, if you haven’t been apple picking yet, get out there and enjoy the harvest. For those here in Massachusetts, here is the farm we go to which is great fun…Red Apple Farm.

Enjoy the harvest everyone! As always, this is life according to Troy.