It’s Harvest Week!! We did Harvest Week last year and had a lot of fun — it makes the work a little more enjoyable, so we decided to have Harvest Week again this year.
We began Harvest Week on Monday, September 8 and ended Harvest Week on Monday, September 15 since we took Sunday off! It was very hot this week so we did a lot of harvesting in the late afternoon and into the evening. We had a lot to harvest which is nice – we’re very blessed!
We harvested our potato patch and corn at my folks’ as well as our garden on our little city homestead, plus we made some delicious recipes and had some crafting fun through the week.
Let’s get started! I’ll share what we did!
Day One – Monday
“Happiness is…
Harvesting vegetables from your garden”
— Unknown
Happy Monday!! We kicked off Harvest Week with a Sweet Tea Harvest Punch which was quite good and simple to make. Some apple juice, fresh juice from some oranges, brewed tea, honey, cinnamon and sliced apple and an orange all combined makes a refreshing drink. It’s hot out, so an iced fruity tea is welcomed! So delicious!! You can find the recipe here!
Then we made cinnamon pumpkins which was lots of fun! It was simple to make – 3 tbsp cinnamon, 1/2 cup applesauce, 1 tbsp white glue and some flour (enough flour to create a dough). Mix it together until a dough forms, then shape into a pumpkin and place a small twig in. Then, set it to air dry. They’re so cute and smell nice too! Once dry, place on a piece of felt and place as a decoration.
We harvested the beans, cucumbers and peas. The peas are shelled, cucumbers pickled and a few are in the fridge to eat and the beans are cleaned, trimmed and frozen. We didn’t have much. It was hot and muggy outside and just gross. The air smells of chaff from the nearby farmers combining.
For supper we had Vegetable Minestrone Soup and Herb Cheese Bread. The soup was a great way to use up a bunch of vegetables!! It was so good.
Day Two – Tuesday
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust.”
— Gertrude Jekyll
We headed out to my folks’ to work in the garden. We had delicious chiffon cake my mom made for dessert, with the strawberries from the market. So good!!
We picked 20 pounds of Cerisa potatoes and 24-1/2 pounds of white potatoes (I’m not sure exactly the kind because we mixed them up when we planted them – but we planted Yukon Gold, Bintje and some other kinds). We sorted the potatoes and laid them out to dry to cure them so they’ll store better for the winter.
We also built a couple racks for our winter pantry which we’ll store our veggies on, hoping they’ll last a bit longer this winter! Once our winter pantry is built and organized (will probably be a winter project!), I’ll be sure to share that with you. That’s it for today!
Day Three – Wednesday
“We plant the seeds, but God gives the harvest.”
— My Life’s Blessings
It was a hot and sunny +26C/78F with not much of a breeze today. The backyard is full sun, so it gets much hotter!!
Today we have a bunch of garden work and harvesting I would like to get done. Nights are getting cooler and next week is supposed to be rainy, so we’d like to harvest the majority of the garden this week!
Today we harvested a bunch of potatoes. We harvested Queen Anne potatoes from our backyard garden and Cerisa. Cerisa and Queen Anne potatoes are high yielding potatoes and so far the best growing ones too in our dirt and climate. We got about 31 pounds
We harvested all of the spaghetti squash as well. The vole decided to dig holes in the squash patch so we thought it best to harvest them. We have a total of 11 which is great considering it was only one plant!
We made Pumpkin Pie Syrup for coffee and tea which is lightly spiced and delicious.
We also added the pumpkin syrup to our Harvest Apple Pumpkin Punch today. It was a delicious drink after a hot afternoon!!
The Warba potatoes we harvested from our potato patch at my folks’ hardly yielded anything and were mostly rotten. We also picked Cerisa potatoes. We got 54.25 pounds of potatoes this evening.
In the late evening, we harvested Red Apple potatoes – a good amount actually – 18 pounds!
Day Four – Thursday
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson
We had another busy day of harvesting potatoes!!
We finished harvesting our potato patch at my folks’ this evening. That was a lot of work!
We harvested another section of potatoes in our backyard garden. So far, we harvested 31 pounds of Queen Anne, 18 pounds of Red Apple and 20 pounds of Cerisa. We started the Melody potatoes but only got one pound so far. That’s 70 pounds of potatoes from Our City Homestead!! We still have the Bintje, Yukon Gold, Melody and Red Emmalie potatoes to harvest — hopefully we’ll finish that this weekend!
We harvested most of the peppers. We have a few still growing so we will see if it actually grows or not. We have a lot of cayenne peppers. The candy cane chocolate cherry peppers grew quite well as did the sweet peppers and jalapeños. We’ve picked several of these three all summer! They were great producers!
We picked what strawberries were ready.
We also picked all the rhubarb which I chopped and froze.
Day Five – Friday
“Harvest: isn’t just the act of picking a vegetable from the vine, it is a season for collecting the crops and celebrating the plentiful gifts our garden has brought to us.”
— Unknown
We harvested all the corn and pulled the stalks too. Some corn was not quite ready, so that we will keep for seed while the other corn we will eat and freeze. Our garden plots at my folks’ are cleaned and ready to be worked up before winter!
We picked the dill and some of the chives – I will be drying and freezing these herbs.
We started our leaf bowls. We are using paper clay we purchased from the craft store. We picked leaves from outside, pressed the leaves into the clay and rolled the leaves with a rolling pin to get a good imprint. Then we cut around the leaf, placed on parchment and placed in a bowl. They’ll sit there until dried and then we will paint them, though I’m tempted to leave my bowl as is. It’ll need to dry for a couple weeks.
We did not get a lot done but everything we did do was quite time consuming. I’m hoping to get a lot more done tomorrow!
Day Six – Saturday
“The more one sows, the greater the harvest.”
— Orison Swett Marden
It was a sunny and hot +28C/82F but in the backyard, with hardly any breeze, the thermometer read +35C/95F! It was definitely hot!!
Today we cleaned up the pumpkin patch and picked the pumpkins and this evening we found one more — we ended up with a total of 28. They’re mostly sugar pumpkins, so they’re smaller but sweeter, tender and better for baking with.
Now, that the pumpkins are picked, we’ll be curing the pumpkins, so they’ll last for several months.
The sunflower that the birds planted is growing nicely!
I cleaned up the cucumbers and found a bunch growing under the tomato plant.
And I got some more of the chives chopped up and put into a jar and in the freezer!
We made delicious Pumpkin Cinnamon Raisin English Muffins – they’re so soft and fluffy. So good!
It was so hot, we dug more potatoes in the dark when it was cooler! We dug up the Melody potatoes and only ended up with a handful — the worst producing potato plant by far.
We also dug up the Bintje potatoes (pronounced BIN-gee) and got 6.5 pounds.
We just have the Yukon Gold and Red Emmalie potatoes to dig up and the corn. We also have tomatoes, but we are leaving them as long as we can. The watermelon and cantaloupe are still just growing so we will leave them as long as we can too!
Day Seven – Sunday
“Rest is the sweet sauce of labour.”
— George Herbert
Today is Sunday – a much needed day of rest. It was a warm and sunny +25C/77F today. We put the pumpkins in the sun to start curing them, but other than that, it’s been a nice, relaxing day!
We have one tomato plant that is amazing and I have been enjoying tomatoes all summer!! I picked a few tomatoes this afternoon which I put on my roast chicken sandwich. I roasted a chicken yesterday which we had bought from the butcher shop and it’s absolutely delicious — it tastes like how chicken should taste!! And this evening, I made homemade tomato soup from some tomatoes we bought at the market. So good!! It was a day of tomatoes — perfect for me — I simply love tomatoes!!
We made Pumpkin No-Bake Oatmeal Cookies which are so delicious! They are soft and chewy l, chocolatey, and have a mild pumpkin flavor. They’re so good!
Day Eight – Monday
“You will always harvest what you plant.”
— Galatians 6:7
Today we harvested the Red Emmalie potatoes. These produced really well and are quite large. We have never grown this variety before so I’m interested to see what they taste like! We also picked the rest of the peas and the seed peas too. We are almost done harvesting — We have the Yukon Gold still to pick and the corn. The tomatoes we are leaving for a couple weeks before harvesting them. We have some herbs to pick and we will be done harvesting the garden!
We enjoyed Old Fashioned Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce this evening…it was absolutely delicious!!
And that’s Harvest Week! It’s hard to believe it’s done – but we sure did accomplish a lot which is fantastic!
We will finish up the last few things in the upcoming weeks. The melon, tomatoes and herbs we want to leave as long as we can. We will have the garden cleaned out before winter!
“Be grateful for a bountiful harvest. Give thanks for sunshine, rain and hard work. Then praise God for filling your pantry.”
— Our City Homestead
