One of the best parts of autumn is harvesting the fruits and vegetables you've been nurturing all summer. We've been harvesting a lot this past week, and have some zucchini we need to start turning into breads and muffins. I think we've gotten the last of our ripe tomatoes, so we still have to pick all the green tomatoes left on the vine and make something like the Rick's Picks Green Tomato Condiment.
We've been spending a lot of time canning the fruits and vegetables we've been harvesting. My husband picked and saved all the strawberries and raspberries we grew this summer just so we could make jam. There is something particularly satisfying about not just preserving the summer's bounty, but also growing what you're preserving. We pick wild blackberries every year and make delicious combinations of blackberry jam with everything from rhubarb to huckleberries, always trying to get creative with the combinations. The only things we were forced to buy this year were cucumbers and beets. We had to buy cucumbers because we just had terrible luck with cucumbers this year, and we had to buy beets because the boys can't get enough of them, and we simply can't grow enough of them. It looks like we'll need to increase our production next year.
On the topic of harvesting, I hope you were able to catch the super harvest moon last night. It was cloudy in Seattle, but I stayed outside to catch the site between the clouds and was able to see both the moon and Jupiter. Even with the clouds you could see how brightly it illuminated the sky. It charms me to think of the days when the harvest moon would have been more important to our society, and it makes me feel a little more connected to the life cycles that affect us all.
