I pulled most of the onions from the garden last night. Now they are "resting" (drying a bit) on a screen in the garage. Assuming I can figure out how to store them properly so they last through the winter, I am going to plant about ten time as many next year. They were totally maintainence free and I think they helped keep the pests down.
I have also started to pull my cranberry bean plants. They also have to dry in a dark, dry place for several weeks. (These are the kinds of beans you dry and then put into soup or chili in the winter.)
Alas, my tomatoes have been striken by the blight, though not as badly as some folks I know. I think this is because I planted heirloom seedings, not the kind you can buy in big box stores. I am busy roasting them and making salsa. I’m not sure if I have enough to make spaghetti sauce. I might pick up a couple crates of Romas to do that, if I can get all the other chores done. I have to destroy my blighted tomato plants and sterilize the earth they grew in to reduce the chances of having to deal with this next year.
My eggplants are trying. This is a little north to grow them easily, and the cool, rainy summer we had did not help their cause.
My basil is taking over the planet.
In other Forest news, BH almost has the floor done in my cottage. This has been a huge job. We started with 125-year-old floor boards, of various widths and lengths. He had to sand off 125 years of varnish and grime and figure out how to make them fit into the cottage, given that they had no uniformity at all. Now they are all in place. He should finish the final sanding today, then he’ll put a couple of coats of clear finish on it. We’re still waiting on the roofers to install the slate tiles on the roof.
Because I am so behind on work, we’re going to leave a lot of the finishing touches until next year. Right the goal is to get me in there so I can write!!
If you have no harvest to deal with, check out this article about the popularity of YA literature by author Paula Chase-Hyman. Stop by her blog, too.
I have enough cucumbers and zucchini for a small Army. I think I have blight on my beefy tomatoes and had no clue I’ll have to sterilize the earth for next year. Good to know!
Your cottage sounds awesome!
I followed along the August writing challenge and to celebrate my progress, I bought WINTERGIRLS! (and a new copy of SPEAK for my teen).
I wish my tomatoes weren’t hit as hard by the blight as they were – my heirlooms actually got the worst of it. Ugh. No homemade tomato sauce for us this winter 🙁
Basil?
I foresee a lot of pesto in your future. :o)
Wow… how do you sterilize the ground?
We have had a bad growing season up in this neck of the woods. All my heirloom tomatoes (Brandewyne) and cherry tomatoes ended up with blight this year. It’s the first time I’ve ever dealt with it. Be sure to burn the plants after you pull them up.
As for the onions – find a cool place in your basement to store them and hang them up to dry (leave the long tops on them) Once dry you can either; braid them together and hang them up
OR
place 5 pounds of onions in a net bag and hang them up. I used the net bags that I get my onions in from the store (I always save the bags as I grow Glads and they need to be dug up evey fall and stored until spring. You can make bags out of nylon netting. I’ve heard that some people use panty hose, but I’ve never tried it
BH is a genius, I think. Can’t wait to see more photos of your cottage.
Also, I’ve tracked down canning jars, and am getting ready to put up some salsa and other things. I rely on the farmer’s market for my produce, having a shady lot, clay soil and black thumbs. But I can cook and can without incident. Huzzah!
Onions
Read about your onions…and others’ suggestions for them now that they’re harvested. These are gorgeous golden drying days….keep your onions outside…on that screen or simply placed on wooden boards and let them dry in the sunshine…rotating every day or so, to allow all parts of the bulb to dry…ours grew to softball size with this rainy, cold summer…one of the crops that thrived in the upstate NY ‘non-summer’…once the necks on the onions have tightened, trim them to approx. an inch or two…then store in bushel basket or netting bags in cool, dry place…enjoy the fruits of your labor right through next spring!
My five different heirloom tomatoes did great so don’t give up on the old varieties, because it would not matter which varieties you would have planted because the disease would have plagued them anyway. We keep our onions in the ground until we want to eat them or until the first freeze which sometimes doesn’t hurt them. I am going to try to bring my potted basil plant in this year. I usually don’t have any luck with herbs in the house.