Our weather turned much, much colder this week. Next week, we may have snow and rain mixed. Some items (like cabbage, kale, Brussel sprouts, turnips) will hold in our garden through a light dusting of snow and no prolonged freezing temps. But there's the more tender produce that needs to come in. I got the last of the green beans harvested, as well as the last of the carrots. I want to use the carrot tops as well as the roots, and I wasn't sure how snow would affect the tops. They're harvested now, the roots are stored and the greens are washed and wrapped in a tea towel in a plastic bag for me to chop and freeze tomorrow. All of our squash and pumpkins (the few there were) are in now, too.
I'd been putting off harvesting the crabapples this year. Our cool spring meant a late ripening. This morning I noticed the leaves were beginning to turn yellow on that tree and the crabapples looked as ripe as they were going to get.
Everyone was home this morning, so I sent out an all hands on deck. It took 4 of us 1 and 1/2 hours to pick them all. If it had just been me, I would have spent all day harvesting crabapples. Once they were picked, I processed the first half of the batch into crabapple sauce and crabapple juice.
I made some hot spiced apple cider with some of the juice, some regular apple juice, part of a cinnamon stick, a few whole cloves and a little sugar to compensate for the tartness of the crabapples. I froze several quarts of crabapple sauce and 2 quarts of juice. Tomorrow, I'll process the other half of the crabapples.
These are long and tiring days. However, there's an element of satisfaction that makes it all worthwhile.
