First, the excuse.....

Someone asked about the lack of blogs on the status of the gardens....

Marcia and her surgical boot were some impediment to our harvesting activities. After a brief recovery from a little hammertoe procedure, she - like frontier women of old - returned to our fall gatherings.

The wonderful red raspberries continue their bountiful production. We freeze some individually on trays for later consumption and spread the rest on a daily cereal breakfast and a lunch salad.

The statice and globe flowers are picked and then hung upside down to dry for later use. Many of our in-house arrangements need brightening, and these candidates should do the trick.

Our pear harvest is usually bi-annual, and this is their off year. We did not spray them afer applying some early dormant oil, but managed to get enough for a few jars. The deer enjoy any that drop on the ground from the remaining crop still on the trees.

The growing winter larder is added to with more bean salad ingredients and a few jars of sweet pears, along with more stuffed peppers that are already in the freezer. We have more of each to follow.