Harvest Time

It's kind of strange that the Fall is considered harvest time, because here on Glen Hill Farm, we had way more things to harvest at the peak of the summer.

Here's a picture of our amazing pumpkin harvest. So much fun to grow! And when do you think these were ready to be picked? October? Just in time for Halloween? Um, nope. These beauties were ripe and ready the first week of August. :) About 2 months earlier than we would have liked. That's okay. We were just happy to have grown actual pumpkins.

Minerva Louise checking out our big pumpkin harvest. In August.

I tried to grow a few new things in our garden this year and one of those things was carrots. I was so excited to grow carrots! And wait til you see how successful I was. Here's a picture of my largest carrot....

I know, I know. It's just enormous. And here's what they looked like when I harvested them all.

my pathetic carrots, but they were so cute and delicious

Yeah, we're going to have to give carrots another try next year. Not sure what went wrong over here. Not sure if I bought the wrong kind of seeds? Or if I harvested them too soon? Or if my soil just isn't carrot-friendly? But even though my carrots looked pathetic, they actually were pretty tasty and so much fun to pull out of the ground! I really enjoyed growing them, so we'll try again next year.

The other new thing that I tried to grow this year-- and failed-- was fennel. Fennel bulbs are one of my favorite vegetables to roast, so I thought why not try to grow it myself? Well, the fennel grew huge, but unfortunately, it was the plant that grew huge and not the bulb (and the bulb is the part that we eat.) I grew the foeniculum volgare variety of Fennel. Not sure if that was the wrong kind? If you've had success growing fennel bulbs, please let me know what I did wrong! Thanks!

My harvested fennel plant. So huge! But almost no bulb. Fail.

My sad fennel bulb chopped up and ready to be roasted. It was terrible.

What my garden likes to grow, for sure, is tomatoes. We planted SunGold cherry tomatoes again this year and wow did they grow! Again, these plants grew so big that we literally couldn't get in the garden to pick the tomatoes. Next year, we'll only plant 2 plants.

We also had a lot of success with our zucchinis, kale, swiss chard and cucumbers which we really enjoyed and so did our chickens. (Turns out that our chickens love kale and not swiss chard. Who would have thought that they would have such selective palates?)

Jonathan even made his Glen Hill Farm pickles again this year. A smaller batch than last year, which made us appreciate them all the more.

And probably one of the most exciting things we grew this year for the first time was corn! We had no idea if this would work in our garden, and I was so proud of what we ended up getting. We planted 3 corn plants and hoped for the best. We ended up getting a decent harvest! It ended up being a one dinner special, but it was very cool that they were home grown.

6 ears of Glen Hill Farm corn on the cob

It really was fulfilling to feed my family from our garden in one way or another almost every day.

Kale chips, corn, zucchini and (inedible) fennel brought to you by Glen Hill Farm.
(potato and steak tips from Fells Market)

And speaking of feeding my family with the fruits of our labor... I'm happy to announce (if I haven't already) that our younger generation of hens have started laying for us! Matilda was our first of this generation who started the last week of August. Her eggs are a beautiful green color. A bit darker green than our other green eggs. Which makes it nice for me because you know I always like to know which hen laid which egg.

I love this picture of our Matilda, because she has the same look as the Matilda that she's named after.
(Roald Dahl's 'Matilda' on Broadway)

And happy to report that Ruby, our Silver Grey Dorking, and Fern, one of our Welsummer hens, are also now laying. They started the first week in September. Fern lays beautiful dark brown eggs, and Ruby lays adorable tiny white eggs that look almost exactly like  ping pong balls.

Fern with her very first egg

Fern's beautiful dark brown egg, sometimes it has freckles.

So that just leaves ONE hen who is not laying yet.... Charlotte, our other Welsummer hen. That's okay, Charlotte, all of us Kaplans were/are late bloomers. You'll get there eventually! No worries!

NINE eggs in one day! Well done, ladies!