Autumn is here and these are apples from one of our apple trees in the kitchen garden. These are quite sour when they start dropping from the tree but we also have another tree with perfect sweet red apples that are perfect to eat right off the tree.
These, on the other hand, are sour and this year I will find a place to store them in the garage and leave them there until Christmas. At that time they will hopefully be more edible and we can use them as cooking apples.
Two weeks ago the last one of the sweet red apples dropped off the tree. This tree produced so many apples that we could not keep up and eat all of them so below the tree it was filled with wasps going crazy in all these apples.
It would be great to have enough extra room to be able to store all these great apples, or perhaps at least a chest freezer. I don’t know if freezing works well with apples but it is tough to see all these apples go to waste.
The potato crop has been great this year. Most of the potatoes grew really big, much larger than expected in this poor soil. Perhaps the soil is actually getting better although it is not that visible.
This is a potato variety called Ditta, and I didn’t expect them to turn into baking potatoes, so I guess the soil is pumped after all. I didn’t even manage to water this part of the kitchen garden so it is not because of additional water, and the taste is also really good.
Although the soil is still sandy most of the potatoes are quite big. Hopefully the soil will be improved as the years go by so that it will be able to retain more water and not let the nutrients sink through.
These are the red apples from the large apple tree, together with another batch of large potatoes. After a quick rinse to wash the sand off and a quick drying these will go into the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, ready to be prepared.
It is really satisfying and worth all the work when you are able to go out and get batch after batch and bring into the kitchen. This year has been special in the way that there were almost no worms, pests or insects in the apples and also not in the plums.
I don’t know what the reason is for this but it sure is nice to be able to experience this once in a while.
Take a look at this beautiful flower with different shades of orange. These are grown from seeds that I have collected last year for the second year in a row. I don’t know what this kind of flower is called but the next one is Asters.
These survived through the first night of frost. It’s nice to have something attractive for the bees although they are long gone for the year.
I often hear that the bees are in trouble so why not support them by making sure that there are also lots of flowers in the kitchen garden? We need those little creatures to take care of the pollination in our garden so that we can get fruits and vegetables on our plates.
Like for instance these bad boys:
Well, actually they are not that impressive in size but since it is the first year that I have grown these I’m happy to see that the Hokkaido plant produced something, no matter what size it was. Thank you, bees!
I believe that the soil has been too poor and depleted and therefore couldn’t produce bigger pumpkins or even more pumpkins, which reminds me how important it is to feed the soil so that it can feed the plants. You need to feed the soil with good compost, and it takes time to produce good compost the natural way.
You need to have patience and let nature do its work while you support it the best way that you can. At the same time this is what I love about gardening – you go with the flow and enjoy your garden!
