Harvest Season at the Homestead!

It’s been harvest season here in the high desert of New Mexico for a few weeks now, the scramble to get everything from the gardens harvested and processed before the first freeze comes, the cannabis only one of the many plants keeping us busy these days.

The pumpkin patch was a major success, and produced a wide variety of squash and pumpkins, including the largest pumpkins I’ve personally ever grown…

And also gourds:

And more pumpkins, and some corn…

It was a year of many firsts for me, including many firsts in gardening, like this being my first time successfully growing corn. Not only that, I planted a large corn patch with Indian corn - multi-colored flour corn - a long time dream of mine; and of all the corn we grew, it did the best this year, though could have been better pollinated with much higher yields for sure.

Managed to fill the bottom of two large boxes, and they sure are pretty drying, with the stunning mix of colors. Now dry, they will need to be pulled from the cob and then some saved for seed and the rest ground up to see if we can at least get enough flour to bake one good batch of corn tortillas or corn chips.

It was also my first time successfully growing broccoli, which seemed to do pretty amazing in this climate with enough water, as by the end of the season we ended up getting a total of at least 9 broccoli plants successfully producing luscious heads. We’ve eaten them all by now, apart from the last one standing - the last one to reach maturity, ready to be eaten any day now.

Despite being the largest broccoli plant by far, the head, as pretty as it is, isn’t noticeably bigger than the others we’ve had develop on much smaller plants, though they were different varieties.

It was also my first time growing okra, which didn’t do the best, but I got a few pods, and the Mexican sunflowers and calendula planted in between the okra plants thrived…

On top of the many fresh green beans we ate throughout the season, there’s now tons of dried beans we’ve picked that still need to be sorted, and lots of freshly picked herbs drying, like the sage seen below:

There’s been endless tomatoes for a couple months now, as we go through bowl after bowl of them trying to keep up with them.

After our latest pickings being used to make a large bowl of tomato soup for a community dinner tonight, there’s still more…

We’ve also gotten loads of peppers, ground cherries, red onions and tomatillos, some cucumbers, countless flower bouquets, a little wheat and some oats, and the list could still go on.

I particularly enjoyed the chard I grew in the raised bed I built by my yurt - pretty, tasty, and giant!

Some stuff is still going strong, like the chard and kale, while we’ve somehow managed to harvest just about all the frost sensitive stuff in time. There’s still the potatoes and carrots at least, but they won’t be destroyed by the coming freezing night temperatures this week.

All in all, not a bad year for gardening, and my first time gardening again in three years. In their prime, the gardens were lush and beautiful…

Pumpkin patch during the peak of Monsoon season, so green and lush:

Loads of cherry tomatoes for months:

Broccoli:

Greens, broccoli, onions and brussels sprouts in the raised bed:

View of my garden, from the back of my deck:

Multi-colored flour corn patch:

Flowering pole beans amidst some popcorn:

Sunflowers scattered throughout the pumpkin patch:

Oats and wheat ready to harvest:

Wild sunflowers in the main garden:

Really thick tomato plants:

And that’s me and my potted pepper plants that I didn’t put into the ground with the rest of them:

I’ve gained a wealth of knowledge and new gardening experience this season, and was also grateful to be able to utilize my chicken-raising expertise to build a chicken coop and help get a flock of laying hens going, now producing many eggs of various shapes, sizes, and colors…

And along with harvest season came some new baby chicks, this time naturally raised by a mother hen!

It might not be entirely self sustainable by any means, but between the garden veggies and the eggs, there is a noticeable chunk of our food supply coming from the homestead, at least during the summer and fall months. Far better than nothing, it’s a big step in the right direction towards sustainability, and always an invaluable learning experience.