August 1 marked the beginning of the first harvest at SevenMaples. Zucchini was the first to arrive, and the funny thing about zucchini is that it can seemingly double in size overnight. You really don’t want that because they’re just not that palatable when they’re too big. So, lesson learned - pick'em small and early!
We started poking around at the potatoes around the same time and sure enough these “jewels of the earth” were also ready to be dug up, and we harvested them in stages over the coming month. A staple of our summer BBQs quickly became the amazing french fries done in the “Ninja” Air Fryer. Simple and healthy, and so satisfying to know we were eating produce grown in our own garden. We ended up with bags of potatoes that were stored in the cellar and we continued to use them well into the winter.
Yellow beans also made their appearance, and we spent an afternoon picking blueberries a few properties over as we looked southwards down over a gorgeous vista to Lake Ontario. Our own berry patch, which includes raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, is in development with more plants being added each year. It’ll likely take a couple more years before it starts producing a significant quantity of fruit, but you can definitely see it taking shape.
As the latter part of August approached the tomato harvest began. All the various varieties of heirloom and beefsteak tomatoes matured within a 2 - 3 week period with a vibrant display of red, orange, purple and pink. This heralded the start of the canning season with many jars of chili, salsa and tomato sauce being produced in the kitchen. We actually had an overabundance of tomatoes, but have since found out that the local food bank is happy to accept donations and this is something we’ll plan to do next summer. We’ll also focus more on the more traditional tomato varieties such as beefsteak, Roma, and cherry, which are delicious and suit our needs. As the saying goes - keep it simple.
Corn was another thing we experimented with, growing about 50 stalks of a couple different varieties. They grew well and produced large ears. However, we left them a bit too long and for the most part were not very flavourful and pretty starchy. We’ll try again, but will do some tweaking and also ensure we don’t leave them too long before picking.
A big delight was the carrots we dug up near the end of August. Very flavourful, perfect for roasting, and we had a good yield, which lasted through December.
One of the pleasures of fall was the beautiful butternut and crookneck squash, and pumpkins that presented
themselves in true fall-like fashion. Seeing all that orange in the field announces that autumn
has arrived. That, in conjunction with the colourful show of changing leaves on the Sugar
Maples and the orchards of red apples that surround us on neighbouring farms.
We’ve made good use of the autumnal yield with squash and pumpkin soups, pumpkin bread and pie, and homemade butternut squash pasta. This coming year we’ll plant even more butternut squash as it is such a treat and we definitely could have used more of it.
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