Descent into winter
One month after the
solstice, I can feel the long, slow descent into winter beginning.
We're racing the shortening days now.
Even though it seems strange
to be thinking of winter in July, we're in the middle of planting the fall
garden. I'm also putting in cover crops
(more on those in a later post) to add organic matter to beds that will
remain fallow until garlic planting time or until the spring.
It's already too late to direct seed anything except bush beans,
lettuce, greens, and garlic unless we plan to protect the crops from
frost.
Meanwhile, I'm
preserving the harvest as fast as I can. I've got 8.75 gallons of
vegetables and a gallon of fruit in the freezer, along with 0.8 gallons
of dried vegetables and 1.3 gallons of dried fruit. Although it
feels like a lot of food, I hope to freeze at least 30 gallons of
vegetables (exluding tomato sauces) this year, so we've got a long way
to go.
Even though I start
itching for the garden in January and February, I have to admit that
I'm looking forward to the fall now. I'm ready to tackle some of
those long-term projects we can't even think about during the summer
months (and I wouldn't mind sleeping past 6 AM either.) Still, I
can't find much to complain about when the first pizza of the year is
on the horizon.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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One month after the solstice, I can feel the long, slow descent into winter beginning.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???
Maaaan! It's only July! It's.only.July.
It's distressing (as a Canadian) to comtemplate (the seven month long) winter when it's 35 degrees out and I'm only just starting to have a nice tan. My tomatoes are still all green!