• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Country Life Experiment

Simple Country Living

  • Home
  • About
    • Start Here
    • FAQs
    • Contact
    • Disclosure
  • Food
    • Mains
    • Desserts
    • Cakes & Biscuits
    • Jams & Preserves
    • Snacks & Treats
    • Drinks
    • Food Hacks
    • Recipe List
  • Simple Living
    • Organisation
  • Garden
  • Country Life
  • Family Time
    • Kid Wrangling
  • DIY
    • Farm House
    • Crochet
    • Christmas

Late Summer Harvest

Oh my goodness! All of a sudden we have been inundated with fruit from the orchard and vegetables from the garden. While it hasn’t been a great year for everything (I’m looking at you cucumbers and cherry tomatoes!!), we are inundated with fruit and vegetables needing to be eaten or else processed and stored for the winter.  We are busy! After last summer, when we were deep in the farmhouse renovation, and the garden took a backseat, we are ready to get into the kitchen and get our depleted stores up.

The orchard is really coming on now. Our stone fruit is abundant, and we can never hope to eat all the fruit while it is still fresh. The prune plums grow easily, so we are sun drying them on the rack we made a few years back. We found an old roof rack at the dump and bought it home, gave it a good scrub and then stretched some fly screen over it. The legs of the rack allow the air to circulate really well around the fruit. We’ve placed it on our north facing veranda to get as much sun as possible and bring it inside at night. CB uses the dried plums in his homemade muesli. I’ve already made peach chutney from the peaches as well as plum jam. There are also some containers of stewed peaches and nectarines in the freezer ready to make pies and crumbles over winter. There’s nothing like the taste summer goodness on a cold winters night. I’m still hoping to find an apricot tree full of fruit on the side of the road so I can make apricot jam. Our tree was only planted last year, so it will be a few more years before we have our own.

The apples are also beginning to come in. So far we’ve harvested a whole lot of Geevestown Fannys (large red apples) and Campbelltown Russets (small green and russet apples). The Geevestown Fannys are great all-rounders which I have been putting through the apple slinky machine and then drying in our dehydrator. The kids love dried apples, so I’m trying to get lots laid down for winter school lunch box snacks, though they are eating them almost as quickly as I can dry them at the moment.

The Campbelltown Russets taste amazing when cooked, so I’m keeping some aside to be used in dinners over the coming months, and I’m also going to stew a whole lot to have with our pork over the winter.We still have a lot more apples and plums to come from the orchard, and we haven’t even started on the pears and quinces yet. We’ve also harvested a handful of hazelnuts which we will just eat (though we need to get a nutcracker), though, in future years, I might try hazelnut butter.

In the garden, the corn hasn’t had it’s best year. While we are getting some cobs, we’ve not had as many as some years. We want to freeze bags of kernels to pull out for dinner over winter, so we will have to see whether we get enough. The cucumbers are also not doing so well. We had hoped to make some cucumber pickles again this year, but I’m not sure we’re going to have enough.

The tomatoes are coming in quickly now. As I type I have my first batch of tomato passata sauce on the stove cooking. We have none in the pantry at all, so I’m hoping to get at least 25 or 30 jars put away to use until next year.  If I get enough sauce made, I also want to semi-dry some and then pop them in oil and herbs.

The strawberries have not done well this year. Their garden is in a strange spot now that we have our extension, and so just this evening we were debating where to move them, together with the asparagus and the rhubarb which all share a garden bed. Once the Summer harvest begins to slow, we have big plans to sort out the garden. New fences, new paths and garden edges, and a rearrangement of the beds. Perhaps even a raised bed or two.

All in all, it’s a season where we hustle to store as much summer goodness away so that we can enjoy the bounty of our harvest all year round. It’s one of my favourite things to do on the farm!


Let everyone know:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More
  • Tumblr
  • Pocket
  • Print
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit

You should also check out...

Previous Post: « Full And Thorough Holiday Reporting
Next Post: Pickled Cucumbers »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jacq Lives Here says

    February 23, 2018 at 2:06 pm

    Oh Jo, I think your garden harvest posts are my favourite! I love hearing about what is growing well (and what is not) as well as what you have planned for all of the produce… I feel as though preserving is somewhat of a forgotten art, so it’s lovely to hear it’s alive and well in the country!

    Reply
  2. Jim McKenna says

    February 19, 2018 at 7:28 pm

    Hi Jo, very nice images. Love your fruit & veg. Can’t wait to finish building and get into the garden taming the kyk and wild oats. I’ll use your posts past and present as a reference to guide me.
    Kind regards, Jim.

    Reply
  3. jan2132 says

    February 19, 2018 at 1:03 pm

    Your photos look lovely and make me nostalgic for the vege patch I used to have. I grow lots of herbs on my balcony, but miss freswh tomatoes and stone fruit. I pay for quality fruit and veg from a member of Anticos family, long known in green grocery trade in Sydney. He is expensive, but the quality is amazing and I but knowing I will be abe to use what I buy and not have it going off. Apple saucve for pork wpuld be great

    Reply
  4. Shirley says

    February 18, 2018 at 11:40 pm

    I always enjoy your stories Jo but your photos are stunning!

    Reply
    • Jo@CountryLifeExperiment says

      February 19, 2018 at 12:18 am

      Thanks Shirley! My new lens is certainly getting a work out!

      Reply

Have your say... Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Hi, I’m Jo

I'm a city girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Search

Browse by month

INSTAGRAM

A lovely, easy Christmas with family, good food, a A lovely, easy Christmas with family, good food, a few presents, an afternoon swim and dinner on the veranda as the sun set. Time to stop and be thankful for the many blessings of the year. I hope you had a lovely Christmas too!
We have been mulling over how to fix up the drivew We have been mulling over how to fix up the driveway and lead up to our house for a while. Currently it’s just a dumping ground for old bits of metal and a big pile of mulch, but C would like to create a turning area and put in a garden. First up though, there’s a huge old stump that needs to go. What better excuse is there to have a fire on Sunday afternoon? C and the kids jumped on the quad bike and trailer, and hauled back a big pile of sticks and logs to help the stump burn. Once the fire was going, marshmallows were found and roasted. No better way to spend time together.
Team work makes the dream work. We were asked rec Team work makes the dream work. 
We were asked recently whether we “make” our kids work on the farm. The answer is of course not. Having said that, all three love to help out whenever they can. They all work hard because they want to; because they take pride in working hard and contributing in a meaningful way to our family life; because they love living on our farm and don’t remember life before we moved here. Whether it be planting trees or doing sheep work or feeding animals, they all want to be involved. As a parent, nothing is better than watching them grow in skill and confidence as they work along side you. We’re so glad that we get to spend time with our three, working together.
We’ve had an unexpected addition to the family ☘️🐑. She is a lot easier to look after than the other family members but she does try to escape her yard and head butt people. Poddy lambs are super cute but they tend to think they are a human. Clover the lamb is sure that Meg is her mum. Can’t think why… 🤔🤣
The perfect way to end a long winter weekend: toge The perfect way to end a long winter weekend: together, cooking damper around the remains of the bonfire.
It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got through shearing without a hitch (thankfully 🙏) but we’ve had a run of the flu followed by Covid run through the family since then. The kids and I have tested positive (this is my second time getting it 🦠) though so far C has managed to avoid it. There has been a lot of lying on the couch feeling pretty ordinary. Han had to reschedule her driving test for a 4th time due to Covid, which is disappointing for her because she wants her freedom and for us because it would be so much more convenient if she could drive herself places. Just to add in to the mix, our hot water system has chosen now as a good time to die so we’re on cold showers until we’re all out of iso. This is not meant to be a whinging post but sometimes life just sucks a bit and it’s good to be real. Fortunately, the sight of the fire going with a stack of wood next to it cheers us up. Things will improve soon. Onwards we go…

Newsletter

Popular Posts

{Recipe} Spiced Plum Paste
Pickled Cucumbers
Pumpkin Fruit Cake
Choc Mint Weetbix Slice
Passionfruit Shortcake
How Our Three Children Share A Bedroom.... Successfully

Categories

Footer

Hi, I’m Jo

City girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress