The busiest time of year.

Some might think the busiest time of the year is Christmas, but for the Quarter Acre Farmer it is most likely late summer.  Late summer is over-lap time.  Some plants are producing at their heaviest right now – tomatoes, eggplants, peppers – and they need to be roasted, dried, pureed, frozen.

Others are succumbing to end of the season drama – fainting over mildew, cringing and crackling into old age, fruiting with dementia – you should see the weird watermelons I've got in my garden.

All of the spent plants must be eradicated (bwa haha!) the soil amended with leaf loam, bunny berries, compost, coffee grounds and the like, before the winter crops are put in.

WHAT?  You haven't put in your winter crops?  Get cracking!  (I'm talking to myself by the way).

I have put in some winter vegetables, actually.  There are beds of carrots, snap peas, onions, garlic (sort of cheating because it has volunteered from the garlic I didn't dig up) and beets…however, I still don't have my cruciferous plants in – broccolli, cauliflower, cabbages.

Uh-oh, I'm heading for bonsai veggies if I don't get a move on.

In the meantime, I'm drying and roasting and freezing like crazy. (See my pallet of zoodles ready to go into the freezer?  YES, ZOODLES FREEZE BEAUTIFULLY.  Just let them thaw and drain before broiling to release that extra moisture)  Along with all the work, I am also happily munching plums, figs, tomatoes, cucumbers right off the vine. Mmmmm. Why can't it be summer forever?