Autumn Harvest and a little contest

Got our first frost the night of November 1st so we harvested the squash on the 2nd.  Pretty, isn't it.

It is a combination of Sweet Meat and Hubbard from cross pollinated seeds that we saved from last years squash.  Oh, I see another little zucchini snuck into the photo.

Not sure what this is but I'm calling it Blood Berries.   It looked like drops of blood on the forest floor.

The frost and the wind really brought the maple leaves down suddenly.  Here are Tonka and Sadie rustling through them in front of my house.

I know what this is but I'm wondering if anyone else can identify it.  If you do, you win a prize, to be chosen later.  The first person to identify it wins a piece of my art work.  So don't enter if you don't like my art;-)

Be well.

Harvest time

                                                                   Tomato Love

I hope you have your speakers turned on because I have a special song queued up to play in honor of home grown tomatoes.  We like to grow lots of tomatoes here, as in about 100 plants.  Chain saw man starts his plants in late winter, early spring, indoors under lights.  We have had ripe tomatoes as early as July.  Not this year.  With the cold sunless summer, our tomatoes didn't start to ripen until late September.  September!!  Luckily, our October had a lot of warm sunny days, even the nights were not cold.  We haven't had a killing frost yet.

We had plenty of tomatoes, they just wanted to stay green.  So in October, we began picking them and bringing them indoors to ripen.  We like the heirloom tomatoes.  These are  Brandywine and  Kellogs Breakfast are the orangy yellow ones.

We're talking a lot of tomatoes! The house is full of them.  Shelves and boxes everywhere!  But they are slowly ripening up.  We dry most of them, rather than canning.  Also there have been gallons of salsa made.  Chain saw man likes to give it away, he goes out and makes deliveries.  People say it is the best salsa they have ever had the pleasure of eating.

When we aren't dealing with tomatoes we have been dealing with the abundance of Chanterelle mushrooms that are growing wild out in the woods.  The weather has been very kind to mushroom growth this season.  I would advise no one to go out and pick these unless they have 100 percent confidence that they know what they are picking. 

We have confidence in our selection.  They need to be cooked before they are edible.  We like to cook up big batches in the cast iron skillet on the wood stove.  Once they are cooked to perfection and cooled we put them in zip lock bags into the freezer for winter consumption.  Delicious when added to stews.  Tastes like chicken.  

Just kidding.

Aside from harvesting the mushrooms and tomatoes, we have also been putting up other garden produce, such as green beans and picking the squash.  I like to make up big pots of dried beans, squash, mushrooms, corn and tomatoes.  That is a staple of our winter diet.  

That is why I haven't had time to blog lately.  Things are slowing down now.  I have more good things to come in future posts, thanks for hanging in there.

Be well.