Some Growing Things

It is a bumper year for the roselle.  Yes, this basket is entirely full of it.  I didn't show the gallon milking pail, also full-to-the-top.  And we only managed to pick half the bushes.  The ones we didn't get to were so laden, they were falling over.  Beats me what went right this year.  They were as neglected as always, but I had a less-than-usual mortality rate on the transplanted seedlings.  This means LOTS of lacto-fermented roselle soda (hmmm...perhaps I will post a recipe?), as well as the freezer stocked with it for mock-cranberry sauce for the holidays.

When I cleaned and dried the seeds in the malabar spinach berries, they left the most beautiful watercoloresque magenta swirls on the plate.  I think I might freeze some of the berries for coloring Easter eggs in the spring.  I wonder how the color might work on wool or fiber...

Ethan leaping over garden beds to avoid the sprinklers...

Part of garden in progress....can you even believe how tall the cassava is?  I've never had it get quite so big before.

My radishes are growing!  This was kind of a surprise, because Clothilde "helped" me plant them.

I went out to the farm with Ethan again yesterday (I'm feeling better and better.  Every morning when I wake up something is different and has healed.).  I finally got to work in my garden.  I planted my miserable, stunted pak choy, tatsoi, gunsho, and komatsuna starts.  I don't know what will become of them, but it was nice to put them in the ground finally, even if I had to fight hoards of fire ants to do it.

I've felt very sabotaged over the garden this year.  I worked SO HARD on the summer garden, and most of it died while we were travelling.  It's amazing how much can die in two weeks!  And the winter garden was one problem after another - violent thunderstorms every day, no cardboard, no manure, compost/manure/hay too far away, illness, near-death, Ethan got the wrong starting soil, insect cloth too wimpy to keep army worms out...not to kvetch, but it's been frustrating!  The garden is a major source of food for us, and not having a steady stream of vegetables seriously hurts our budget.

But they say that it is best to be thankful for what you have, and don't worry about what you don't have. And we have a LOT of roselle.