Hey guys, I'm taking out the last of my garden. Thought you might enjoy a few pics (hope I didn't size them too small). These give a small hint at the wealth of fresh vegetables and fruit we've enjoyed over the past four months, not to mention the amount of surplus taken by friends, family, and colleagues.

Caution: persons who are hungry for real food should consult a physician before viewing this post.

Waiting for spring -- we can't do much planting before late May:


The garden in early July:


Garden in fall:


One of our five apple trees; all were loaded this year:


Last of the apples (we gave away something like 40 gallons this year, and as much ended up on the ground; we couldn't keep up):


Last of the squash, onions, and potatoes:




Last of the tomatoes -- again, we gave away buckets of these:


Scarlet runner bean seeds (pole beans) drying for next year; wonder if they're usable as plain ol' dry beans?


Other garden loot now in the larder (no pics yet):

27 quarts of home-made dill pickles
15 jars of zucchini relish
20+ jars of home-made jam (saskatoon-rhubarb, strawberry-rhubarb, raspberry)
2 gallons of sweet-and-hot pickles, refrigerated
2 gallons of beets, refrigerated
15 quarts of spiced apple juice
5 gallons of raspberries, frozen
5 gallons of saskatoons, frozen
3-4 gallons of rhubarb, frozen
5 or 6 home-made apple pies, frozen and ready for the oven.

To do today: dig, wash, and store the carrots and parsnips.

Cheers,
-Doug

Gorgeous, Doug! Flat out GORGEOUS!

And yes, scarlet runner beans are completely edible, tasting like butter beans when dry/cooked. But they do lose their marbled coloring and turn grey.

Did you grow any other kind of beans?

Sue

Nice! I'll be right over for supper.

HJ

So very jealous.
Here's my yard/garden as of last week.
-Blast

Wow. Pretty amazing place you got there.

That's a good-looking place you've got there, Blast! I'll bet your girls have a real... uh... good time there.

Labyrinth... I heard your opossum got lost in there.

Sue

Cool garden, makes me hungry just looking at it.

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. This has been many years in the making.

We've done pretty well considering it's zone 3a with an average of 140 frost-free days per year.

It's a lot of work, but I don't know what I'd do with myself otherwise. I guess I'd be bumming around in the mountains someplace.

SUPER!..now thats the kind of garden that you can really get what you need out of.we have a 4x8 tomato patch on our city lot in Minneapolis--thats way down South too you--and tomato's and peppers for summer salads is about all we can get out of it..which is ok.if you could keep a beef cow or two way in the back you would be all set..chickens???..

That's fantastic Doug. Its really inspirational to see such bounty from all your hard work.

But about those apples - you need to read up on cider making ! The apples on the ground are perfect for cider making, preferable infact !

Aside from the scarlet runner beans, we only planted bush beans (green and purple) for fresh eating. I'd love to grow more protein, but our growing season is generally too short for beans intended for drying. Though there is talk of a new greenhouse that would extend the season for all sorts of things. And if I like the scarlet runners as dried beans, I could start them earlier. I dug up a few scarlet runner root balls for storage; apparently you can keep them over winter to get a head start.

Keeping food animals is a possibility, given that my property is fenced with suitable outbuildings. I have sources for breeding stock, and it's nice to have the option, but I wouldn't bother unless I had to. I have worked with food animals large and small, and so have no illusions about the effort and upkeep involved.

I have looked at local "wild" options, and there are many. I can hardly keep the pigeons out of my hayloft. There are white-tail deer running around outside my fence and using my bush for winter cover (I should set out surplus apples in a trough, along with a salt lick). And the grasshopper population exploded this year, chewing up all sorts of stuff. So I have many options for charging "rent" if I so desire.

It's been on my mind for years, but our season is so compressed that much of the harvest comes all at once, and I never seem to have time or energy. Some friends picked a ton of our raspberries to make wine with. If that turns out well, I might be motivated to make a few carboys of apple-raspberry-rhubarb next year. (Note that you can "freeze distill" a light wine like that to make a more potent potable. Watch out for revenooers! )

Bloody heck, something went wrong with the photos in my OP. I can't edit it to repair the links.

Sorry 'bout that.

Here's a link to the same photo set, with slightly higher resolution.

Mods, any repair suggestions?

Yes, I only recently learned they were perennial. A man by the name of Glenn Riley (Port Angeles, WA) once grew around 60 different kinds of beans, and the scarlet runners out-produced all of them.

They could be a good addition to the 'invisible' food garden. People would think nothing that pretty could be edible.

Sue

Here are the photos again (deleted due to an ID-10T error ):