Harvest Moon

One of the, um, interesting things about this whole new self-sefficient-ish lark is the terrifyingly steep learning curve. Back in April when I was merrily sowing seeds & chitting potatoes no one mentioned that, at some point, it would all need harvesting.
In my old (much smaller) garden, harvesting was a small daily ritual, venturing out to the single raised bed & seeing what needed eating. By September it was over but for the half dozen Jerusalem artichokes that loitered in the corner.
So (in case it wasn't apparent from the recent spate of harvesting & storing blogs) I'm currently in the midst of frantic harvesting & storing. Potatoes have been dug up, checked over & packed into paper bags (the nibbled ones made into half a freezers worth of mash*), apples have been wrapped in newspaper & stored, beets have been clamped, Pumpkins have been harvested & left to cure in the polytunnel, beans podded & dried & the last of the courgettes harvested.

And in the midst of this flurry of activity, MikeyFox & myself have decided to drop it all and disappear off to Dublin for a week (to celebrate 10 years since the day we met. Yes, we're celebrating the day we met). So I'll be taking a short hiatus from blogging, as I'll be in another country.

But first, there's still the Oca that needs covering with fleece, tomatillos to be harvested & chilli's to be collected & strung up to dry. And the house needs cleaning, so the old lady who's watching the cats in our absence doesn't suck air through her teeth at me (the greatest, unspoken, criticism the elderly can bestow upon the young).

Have a happy harvest folks, and don't break the Internet while I'm gone!

*When we get tired of plain mash, it can be perked up with a spoonful of mustard, horseradish, wasabi paste, grated cheese, shredded fried cabbage or turned into gnocchi, scones, MikeyFox's Fishless Fishcakes or potato cakes.