Season of Abundance

A little boy's harvest basket, full of acorns from Nana's house.

 I really love this time of year. From late summer into early and then mid-autumn, when the garden that we've worked so hard to keep going in the heat of summer rewards us with so much delicious produce. My little boy is absolutely loving doing the 'harvesting'. I guess he learned about it when we pulled out the first bed of potatoes, and his little eyes boggled at all the potatoes to be found in the ground. That was a good six weeks ago now I think. And since then, his mission every single day has been to get a harvest. So off he goes with his harvest basket, and fills it up with whatever he can find. Still-green tomatoes (that generally ripen after picking anyway), green strawberries, tiny beans, handfuls and handfuls of spring onions, the occasional squash (after I alerted him to their existence), peppercorns, not-yet-ripe olives, parsnips, beetroot. The only thing he doesn't get is the zucchini's because mama has to cut them off with a knife (best trick ever to prevent a toddler picking them) and the pumpkins, thankfully.

He loves it. Granted we've eaten about 5 beans in the house, and he's had probably a total of three ripe strawberries, but sometimes it's more important for the little one to learn. About growing food, about when to harvest (and when to leave things alone, we're slowly getting there), about eating what we grow in the garden. He loves eating food from the garden, and I love that he happily eats all his vegetables. 

Big zucchinis, after being away for a few rainy days.

I'm surprised by the volume and variety of food we've been able to produce this season, to be honest. If you asked me back in October or November, I probably would have said we'd be lucky to get anything growing for the summer. But after a while, the setbacks sort of disappeared and things started to grow. In little spots that we prepared very hastily (dig a hole, add compost, plant). A dose of rain here and there helped things along, and before we knew it we had a substantial vegetable garden (two, actually). I reached a point where I knew I couldn't plant anything more, even though I wanted to, as I simply couldn't keep up with the watering required, I just didn't have the time. Which was a good thing, really.

So we've picked all the beetroot, and corn, and potatoes (so many potatoes, yay!). And we've had so many little yellow tomatoes, despite so many tiny ones being picked by little toddler hands. I lost a pot full of leeks in an afternoon harvest frenzy, and a late planting of beetroots that were just starting to take hold nicely. The parsnips have recently come out, although I do have another group planted that little toddler doesn't yet know about. Zucchini's are coming in by the bucket load - I planted four plants. We probably didn't need four plants but I really do love having too many zucchini's. It's just a summer thing. From the fruit trees we had plums, nectarines and the odd apple. The low down apples were all picked very early on by toddler hands, and the almost ready high up apples were munched away by a horse. As was the lone pear on our little pear tree, and half the tree for that matter too. 

I had a hard time harvesting the beetroots in this wine barrel, they just looked so pretty.

So I need to wise up in years to come to make sure some of the produce actually makes it into the kitchen. But really, I'm happy with everything for this year. I've had my hands full dealing with everything that has made it's way into the kitchen and I don't know that I could have dealt with much more this time around. And now the silverbeet is finally starting to produce wonderful things for us (how I have missed having a constant supply of silverbeet), some broad beans are starting to grow from a recent toddler planting mission, and some cabbages and cauliflowers are doing quite well in the bed we first harvested potatoes from. And my mind is turning to the autumn jobs, pulling out all the tomatoes, thinking about planting peas and broccoli and more broad beans. I think we will plant a lot of broad beans this year, I still don't really know where things will find their permanent home in the garden so I figure I might as well plant lots of things that will improve the soil. Potatoes to break up hard packed areas over summer, broad beans for a bit of extra nitrogen during the cooler months. 

I really do love this garden toil. And I'm seeing just how much my little boy loves it too. And this is the season to enjoy the abundance, and that is what I am doing.

How is your March looking? Are you enjoying the autumn garden or gearing up for the summer to come?