Fall Reminders

For most of us, fall is definitely in the air! The days have cooled, the nights have started to freeze, and the leaves are turning colors and falling. Time for fall cleaning and retiring that garden bed. I love gardening, but I have to admit it's a relief when I get a break each winter. :)

It's time to finish those canning projects and add the finishing touches to our harvest for the winter. I brought in all the pumpkins and melons (none of which we planted--they just grew on their own) to store them indoors, and now my food storage room is about full. It's a good feeling.

It's also time for fall planting, for those of you who, like us, add a few permanent plants each year. We planted a fruit tree (to replace one from last year, that didn't make it), a grape plant, and four raspberry plants. Now is a very good time to plant any of these, as long as they are potted plants (and not bare root). Keep watering them until it freezes consistently at night and they should do fine through the winter and come back beautifully in the spring.

Oh, and for those who missed my autumn post last year with tips for staying healthy as the weather cools, click here.

Happy fall, everyone!

Things Learned this Fall

We have learned a couple more new things this fall from doing them and I thought I'd share them with you. They're not anything new to the gardening world or the internet, but they were exciting for us. And they're appropriate here, since part of the purpose of this blog is to show and tell how my family is learning and improving in our efforts to be healthier and become more self-sufficient.

Last weekend my husband and two of our children harvested our first potato crop and the rest of our carrots.

It was like a treasure hunt, and our girls enjoyed the search and the time with Daddy. Of course, in addition to learning where vegetables come from, they are learning more about the importance of hard work, and the joys and secrets of growing our own produce. I'm so glad my husband likes to garden, too, and is a hard worker!

A few weeks ago, after online research, speaking with experts in our area, and making a couple visits to our local nursery, we planted five fruit trees in our backyard--something we've been wanting to do since we moved here a little over a year ago. I learned that the fall is actually the best time of the year to plant trees here, but they have to be containered trees (in other words, no bareroot). That means they're more expensive, but they tend to become established easier, since the air is cooler than the ground and they don't get dried out so quickly.

They're not much to look at right now, since they're so small and it's fall (as well as the fact that we have a lot of work to do yet before our yard looks the way we want it to), but one day, hopfully in the next few years, these trees will bring beauty and value to our property, and provide lots of good, healthful fruit for our use.