The first few pictures are from a morning harvest this past week and the pictures beginning in the forest are from an evening harvest. This past week we’ve been harvesting zucchini, yellow summer squash, cucumbers, green beans, kale, collards, chard, and a few mushrooms here and there. We had so much lettuce happening, giving us fresh salads every day, but with the heat it has all bolted and thus no more fresh salads from the garden. Jeff said we’ll have a lot of lettuce seed. We’ve been gathering our harvests every day with whatever we can find- bowls, cardboard boxes, a bucket, an old colander Bracken uses in his outdoor kitchen. Mornings are the best time to harvest, but if that doesn’t happen for some reason, we harvest in the evenings.

One evening we headed up the mountain behind our house in search of blackberries. As we passed through the forest, we noticed the huckleberries seem larger this year than years past. They also started ripening earlier, like everything else. We ended up coming back down and picking blackberries right around our yard. Jeff and I picked enough to freeze some for smoothies this winter. Bracken’s bucket, strangely enough, was empty. He smiled up at me and his face and teeth were all stained, he was quite enjoying himself.

Another batch of kale chips were made this week. Jeff cooked and froze some collards to enjoy this winter. He’s also been making lots of pickles and it feels great to not buy cucumbers from nearby farms like we have in previous years, but to be getting all our own cucumbers from our garden instead. A little more zucchini was put in the freezer, but mostly we’re eating it up, though I did share a few with a neighbor (go figure, someone actually wanted some) and used some to bake in a recipe I made up. So far all the green beans are getting eaten up, but we’re hoping we’ll turn a corner and harvest enough of them to freeze some for the winter as well. It looks like we’ll be enjoying blackberry season for awhile longer, with all the green ones still yet to ripen. We want to keep picking them as often as we’re able to. They’re the only berry growing around our yard in enough abundance that we can save some for the winter and they’ll be great in smoothies.

Jeff and Bracken started planting seeds for our winter garden. I’ve felt a lack of motivation in the garden with all the heat lately and wondered where in the world there would be room to plant anything, but then we talked about a few spots that will work. While watering the back garden today, I spotted a bunch of things ready to harvest, so looks like we’ll be heading out to the garden for another evening harvest tonight. While I might be lacking somewhat in planting motivation as of late, luckily I’m not lacking in harvesting motivation! It helps that those garden vegetables are such a delicious addition to our meals and we can’t get enough of them right now. For the gardeners out there- what have you been harvesting in your garden these days and what have you been doing with it all?

P.S. You can find our booth, in space 350, at the Eugene Saturday Market tomorrow!