Fall Harvest

Today is Saturday, so we were at the farmer's market this morning. It's the last day for the outdoor market; they'll be moving inside to the fairgrounds until the spring. Although the weather was chilly (about 40, with wind, and grey skies horizon to horizon), there was still a tremendous bounty to be had. Behold:


We have cider, apples of two varieties, red peppers from several vendors, parsnips, turnips, red carrots, a single enormous sweet potato, spinach, pumpkins of two (cooking) varieties, a small sweet melon, small potatoes, leeks, garlic, red onions, swiss chard, Amish eggs, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and butternut squash.

Brynna's getting in on the act as well, in these belated 12-week pictures:



We have not only what the market can provide, but a bit from our own garden, too. You may recall we had some success with peppers, and tremendous amounts of basil. Here was our garden a month ago:


The first few frosts have ended the growing season, though. Some of the outermost basil leaves were killed off, and the pepper plants started drooping as well. So, out with all of it. I had already made scads of pesto earlier in the summer, and there simply isn't enough bread, tomatoes, and mozzarella to consume all that basil fresh. So, I spent some two hours plucking the useful leaves from the uprooted basil plants, which were then washed and set out on the sunny porch to dry:



I'm not sure if this dried basil will be at all good, but it's something.

I also pulled the pepper plants and harvested what I could. There were a number of tiny bits that were far from ripe, of which probably nothing will come. I was able to get a half dozen decent sized poblanos, one or two purples, and two enormous-but-not-yet-ripe reds, and a whole bunch of other odds and ends.


These are in addition to some I wrote about earlier in the summer, plus about a dozen or so that I just plucked off for cooking with here and there. So, all-in-all, a pretty successful season for a first time.