The humidity dropped and the night cooled down and I slept 9 hours. When I got up on Wednesday morning it was very pleasant and I felt okay, so I set about getting the last of the big beets cooking. My backup helper would be here at 8:30 to take me on errands. I wanted the beets to cook while we were out.
3rd Fence garden - harebells
We had gotten a load of dishes into the dishwasher before we left. When we got back, we finished cleaning up the kitchen and got set up to process the beets. The smaller ones were done and I left the bigger ones to keep cooking.
Anne raspberries – 2nd crop
We got my friend’s 11 pints done and had 6 pint boxes left for mine. We used all but one of the giant beets. My helper took home part of it. We got the awful mess cleaned up and finished just after noon. I looked like I’d been in a fight, and my helper had 2 tiny spots on her apron. Sigh…
Big garden - parsnips
I was wiped out and spent the afternoon napping on the couch with the cat. My son got a lot of weedwacking done around the little trees and the yard.
My intern is coming on Thursday and we are going to harvest what’s left of the berries. There are still a lot of green ones so I hope we can cover them with pieces of old row cover.
Little trees – comfrey flowers
I’ve not made anything with elderberries before so I’ve been reading up. The only thing I’m not sure about is using my Squeezo to extract the juice. One doesn’t want to crack the seeds as they have cyanide in them. So we will experiment first.
I seem to have a lot of poke growing around this year. I’ve pulled a lot of it out of the flowerbeds. This one is growing just outside of the 7th Fence garden.
Over between the gas tank and the Big garden, there’s a very large one just starting to flower. It should have been pulled out awhile ago. They are hard to pull out once well established.
New Herb garden – Row 1, astragalus flowers
New Herb garden – Row 2, tansy in flower
New Herb garden – Row 1, butterflyweed
In the Small garden it’s pretty hard to move around now. But if I want to water it, I have to pick my way in because the vines wind around the sprinkler.
Each year this shrub on the edge of the swamp has these spectacular white flowers. I’ve never found out what it is, mostly because I’ve not tried too hard.
They grow on a steep bank and I’ve not tried to get down there to get a sample to identify.
Thursday is to be elderberries as I said. It’s supposed to be another nice day, not too hot and much lower humidity.