Harvest Time

We've had light frosts a couple of nights this week, so it was time to get the last of the tender plants harvested. Before the first frost Sunday night, Joseph pulled all the basil plants. I made many batches of pesto to carry us through the winter. Yesterday, I dug sweet potatoes. We had a wonderful harvest. I do not say this lightly. The past several years, sweet potato harvest has been a bit discouraging. Joseph & I would fork up the ground, only to find that the voles had been blissfully & safely eating all the innards out of almost all of them. I'm a reasonably good sharer, but I wanted more than a meals worth of sweet potatoes. So this year, Joseph outsmarted them. He dug a 2 ft trench, lined it with chicken wire, then built a wooden border for the raised bed, enabling him to add another foot of soil on top of the ground. It worked! It's always fun to see what sizes and shapes of sweet potatoes show up. We had 2 "hosses" that were over 3 lbs a piece. I gave Joseph a standing ovation. Our plan is to rotate the "Irish" potatoes with the sweet potatoes, as he made another potato bed this summer. I harvested eggplant yesterday & made Eggplant Parmigiana, along with an apple pie from our apples. I love eating a meal from food we've grown here. Today, I've made a batch of Kitchen Thyme soap, & have been working on cleaning up some beeswax I got from some potter friends. It's a beautiful day here, with temps in the mid-70's, blue skies and lots of birdsong. I hope it's just as nice where you are.