August 23rd- 29th, Week 22
RuthAnn’s Weekly Garden Diary
Documenting Progress and Reflections in the Garden
My attempt to document the planting, growth, harvesting, and preserving of our family’s 8000 square feet of garden.
Northeast Iowa Gardening in growing zone 4
Last frost date May15, First frost date September 15
August 23rd to 29th, Week 22
22 weeks!! For 22 weeks I have been writing this garden diary! I want you to know that this is the longest I have EVER kept a diary in my entire lifetime! I want to thank all you, gentle readers, for being the motivation that has helped me to reach this lofty goal that I set for myself! Without you I would’ve never reached it!
As I sit and write this week’s post, I feel the pressure of the August Garden! The shortening of days is pushing every crop to produce at the same time the hustle of summer and its 15-16 hours of daylight seems to be catching up with me and my body is crying out for slower days!
What we harvested this week:
- A few more green beans for fresh eating.
- 4 quarts of raspberries, flash frozen and then into Ziploc bags plus bowls full that we have eaten on our yogurt and in our smoothies!
- As many grapes as we can eat!
- Aprons full of macintosh apples that we have been eating fresh and fermenting (video/recipe here.)
- A few carrots for snacking on.
Garden Tasks:
We have finally made headway with the potato bugs (the boys pick them off daily) and the late potato plants are finally full and leafy green. I did a little digging and didn’t find very many potatoes underneath, so I am trying to manage my expectations about harvest and have considered that maybe it is time to move on to a different variety of potatoes. I have been planting Kennebec Variety for 25 years and for the last 5 years or, so I have been somewhat disappointed at the yield.
The early potatoes we harvested are tucked into the cold room; I am running a fan on low over them to help keep them dry during the humidity of late summer.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about sweet potatoes and how much easier they are to store than regular white potatoes. The challenges I might face with growing more sweet potatoes are:
- They take up so much more room in the garden because of the vining.
- Our season is barely long enough to grow the great storing varieties. Especially since sweet potato seedlings are so sensitive to cold spring weather.
- I need to get my family accustomed to eating more sweet potatoes.
Making myself a goal to make sweet potatoes once a week this winter to start adjusting the family’s palate!
Temps dipped down into the 50’s each morning this week, stalling the ripening of the tomatoes. I got a little concerned until I saw the forecast and noticed more rain and heat index predictions over 100°F for the next week! No worries, I will be up to my eyeballs in tomatoes next week!
Reflections
I noticed a dozen hummingbirds around my 3 feeders this week, no doubt migration has started, and my regular hummingbirds are hosting their traveling relatives! I am hoping that next summer all the traveling relatives remember how lovely my feeders full of organic sugar water were and will decide to stay in our yard rather than traveling farther north to Minnesota and Wisconsin for nesting like most of them do!
The bees are busy making honey from the goldenrod and the buckwheat blossoms are covered with pollinators too! I peeped into the beehives this week and was inspired by their productivity! We likely won’t harvest any honey from our hives this year because the swarms are young and not fully established and we want the bees to have enough nourishment to get them through the long cold winter that is ahead of us!
We have been invited to our mentor’s home to help him with his fall honey harvest and extraction, and we are so excited about this!
May God bless you,
RuthAnn Z
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10 Responses
I started planting German Butterball potatoes. So far I’m impressed with their size and varied usage. I’m in zone 5, southeast Idaho. I know… I’m a rebel for not growing russet.
I watched your video on herbicide drift and how it damaged your garden. You made a great point and I’m sure you made an impact to everyone who heard your words. The most important thing is your heart and your response to a evil world. Your babies are watching you. God Bless you wonderful lady for youdom!
I look forward to your emails since I am off social media, and I am very much inspired by you in so many ways! Thank you!
Here in Central Texas I’m gearing up for our fall/winter crops. The first of the beet and pea seeds are in the ground and the cucumbers are nestled under the second growth of asparagus bean plants. We’re waiting for cooling temperatures- today is the 1st day under 100 for a couple of weeks. We haven’t seen more than 1/10th inch of rain since early June. It’s so easy to not get discouraged, but I’m the daughter of farmers and we are the ultimate optimists, aren’t we?
I love catching up on your articles. Like reading a friend’s letter! You encourage others and I hope we encourage you also. Blessings
Thoma
You, and other homesteaders encourage me! I’m older than you- my children are all grown. But I still get tired from dealing with all the fresh produce- even in my small garden! This year was mostly a year for cucumbers! And I can’t keep up! I just ordered more fermenting weights so I can start more than 4 jars at a time. I’ve made chilled cucumber soup, several times, fermented 8qts so far, canned sweet pickle relish, eaten fresh cukes, and put slices in with sliced onions & salt brine to eat. Plus given quite a few away!
My tomato harvest was more reasonable to deal with this year, and other crops just didn’t do well with all the weird weather. I do have a small plastic greenhouse that I planted jalapeños & cayennes in. The jalapeños were what I wanted lots of. They’ve done ok. But the cayennes- GOBS of them! Hoping to dry them all & grind my own powder.
May God bless you & your energy to keep preserving your harvest to have for this winter!
I love reading your garden diary! It aspires me to one day have something smaller but similar. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Have you considered bush variety sweet potatoes? I have not grown them but understand the potatoes are just beneath the plant so much less vining and digging up the garden.
Another lovely journal entry RuthAnn! Thank you for taking us along this season – I’ve enjoyed it so much! ❤️ xo
Your diary has been a lovely highlight this summer! My usual gardening and harvesting have been deeply curtailed because of recovery from surgery. So, I’m vicariously enjoying your garden and harvest, and making plans for next year. Thank you!!