harvest time in the garden by Wind from the North

Autumn harvest time

One free day in my calendar without any plans – that equals to a perfect autumn harvesting day in the garden. In the morning I got up really late and enjoyed a slow start in the day. I don’t really have many routines but my morning coffee is one of the sacred ones. Finns are big coffee drinkers and I’m no exception.

Today, before making myself my every-morning-triple-espresso I bottled two liters of home beer that I had prepared the morning before and baked four buns with the leftover beer malts. This time I added linen seeds and the result turned out so lovely that I decided to update the old recipe a little 🙂

beer-malt-bread-with-linen-seeds
beer malt buns with linen seeds
harvest time

After enjoying a hearty breakfast we headed to the garden. We harvested all our potatoes and the rest of the herbs and beans. Kaylee watched me dig up the potatoes and decided to offer me help. She loves digging and sniffing and it didn’t take long for her to figure out that she could smell the potatoes that were still underground. She dug intensively with me for at least half an hour and we both had great fun!

Kaylee and me harvesting potatoes
Kaylee and me harvesting potatoes

We really have to plan what to plant in our garden – not everything grows here up North. Basically all the plants have to be somewhat frost-resistant. Lettuce, for example, we tried this year, but it didn’t turn out too good without growing it indoors first. Instead of lettuce, we’ve decided to focus on growing chard and collecting wild plants for our salad instead.

harvest-time
the colorful mix: potatoes, beans, onions, cucumbers, herbs and chard
A gardener’s friend

A little robin visited us in the garden and wasn’t really afraid of us. In Great Britain and Ireland robins are known as “gardener’s friends” because they’re not too afraid of people and like watching people digging soil in order to find food. This robin likes to watch us work and I only noticed it when I was collecting herbs. I tried to take pictures of it but didn’t have a good lens for that.

makimeirami
origanum vulgaris
kynteli
satureja hortensis

Zucchinis and cucumbers are the only plants that are still blooming and producing vegetables. Last weekend we picked 93 kilos of apples and took them to the juice press station. On Tuesday morning we picked up 61 liters of sweet apple juice. 20 liters will be turned into hard apple cider this weekend. Once I get to the bottling phase I’ll post the instructions to apple cider making here.

zucchini flowers
zucchini flowers

 

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