Where I am in the harvest for this season

What's left of the pumpkins and squash.
We've been enjoying them this past month.

I've been keeping this list in my notepad, updating as I progress. As you've heard all about my various harvesting, I thought I'd share the list.

This is what I've harvested and processed so far:

• apples from all trees -- fresh in fridge, applesauce and dried apples in freezer 
• pears from all trees -- I harvested the last tree a week ago Wednesday, now in fridge 
• plums -- all harvested, dried or chopped and in freezer 
• unripe figs -- mostly harvested and processed into spiced sweetened figs and fig puree for quick bread
• potatoes -- all dug and now indoors
• onions -- all dug
• tomatoes -- all harvested and indoors, green ones slowly ripening
• garlic -- all dug, still need to plant 2026 garlic from the best in this harvest
• carrots -- partially dug
• celery -- partially harvested, leaves chopped for freezer
• cabbage -- mostly harvested, cut second to last one yesterday and cleaned it, stored in fridge
• herbs -- all harvested and dried
• pumpkins and squash -- all harvested and indoors
• made year-supply of salsa
• made 8 pints of pickle relish, part sweet, part dill, using odds and ends from garden
• made rhubarb, plum, blackberry, and raspberry jams and pear butter
• made chutney
• planted 4 bins of radishes for greens, all have sprouted
• harvested 1/2 of crabapples and made sauce and juice

What I need to do to complete the harvest

• harvest beets -- end of month
• harvest turnips -- end of month
• finish harvesting carrots, celery, cabbage (1 left)
• plant 2026 garlic -- as soon as celery is out of its bed, the garlic will go in
• finish harvesting unripe figs -- 1 more batch, process into spiced sweetened figs
• harvest 1/2 crabapples -- process into juice, applesauce, and jelly
• finish harvesting the Swiss chard -- chop and freeze
• finish harvesting rhubarb -- 1 last cutting out there, will make a crisp later this week

I left a few apples, plums, and pears on the trees for the squirrels. I'll do the same with the unripe figs and crabapples. I only have jars for 2 more quarts of spiced sweetened figs. So I'll call it quits on figs after that last batch. And I only have space in the freezers and containers for 2 more pickings of crabapples. I wind up leaving a fair amount (all those high up) of crabapples on the tree every year. The critters enjoy them. 

I don't have to worry about harvesting all of the kale or Brussel sprout greens. Those will keep in the garden until January or February. I'll just pick those as we want for meals the next couple of months. The Swiss chard only has about 2 meals left on the plants. If we use those leaves for meals in the next couple of weeks I won't need to chop and freeze them. The radish leaves in bins are doing well and will be used in meals in late October through mid-November.

The month is nearly half over. I am working hard to finish up. I can see on my list that I am getting closer and closer.

Work smarter, not harder

This has been a mantra of a good friend to me for many years. She's the queen of finding simpler, better ways to do anything. I thought of this this morning.

There's a reason "picking low-hanging fruit" is a synonym for taking the easy route. I've harvested all of the low-hanging unripe figs from our trees already. They were easy. Now I'm left with figs 10 feet or more above my head. Even on a ladder, picking those figs would be a difficult job.

I usually prune fruit trees in winter, after the leaves have fallen. Today I decided to do the winter fig tree pruning and harvest the high figs all at one time. Smarter, right?

Fortunately, unripe figs are firm, like the texture of cork. After cutting the branches off, I easily plucked off the figs.

I filled a salad spinner filled with those figs, enough to work with this morning.

One full salad spinner makes 2 quarts of preserved, sweetened unripe figs.

When I can, I double up my jobs, sometimes combining two jobs into one or sometimes making twice or more of the same recipe. If I have two occasions for which I need to contribute cookies, I make a double batch and freeze one half. In fall, knowing I will be baking a lot of pies between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, I make a 5-pie batch of pastry and freeze it all in rounds. 

If I had picked figs directly off the tree this morning, with the plan to prune branches after the leaves fall, I likely would have spent the same amount of time climbing a ladder and picking one by one, moving the ladder, picking more, moving the ladder again, etc. as I did sawing and quickly plucking figs off the fallen branches. And now I don't need to prune this tree in winter.

What are some ways you've found to work smarter and not harder?