Harvest Fairies

Picking bouquets with my little garden fairy is one of my favorite things to do of late. She is so happy to grab a pair of scissors and snip away. She also loves to help me gather mint. I think we have enough dried mint now for years to come,  but it's so very useful so another handful never hurts. We grabbed some wild flowers from the hill side to make hair wreathes the other day when the weather was that perfect end of summer/ almost Fall mellow sort of sunshine.

Oona loves to wear braids lately, and pretend she is a Native American princess.

A tiny wreath was made for Miss Elsie, even though she thought it too silly to keep on her head and preferred to stick it on me.

 It's been a while since I've done a garden update. It's looking pretty wild these days, as more time is spent eating and preserving and enjoying rather than planting and weeding. I know all too soon I will have to think about bulbs, and preparing the garden bed for winter.

 The tipi at the center of the garden was unexpectedly covered in nasturtiums... which is wonderful because for some reason the morning glories grew up it, but never blossomed. And now that it is covered, it is a wonderful place to play while Mama harvests. Next year we will have to start a separate kid's garden, too, so they can have their own special rewards for digging in the dirt.

 Elsa's favorite spot in the big garden is by the cherry tomatoes. For some reason, even though there are plenty of ripe ones, she seems to prefer the green tomatoes. "A ball... a ball..." she tells me every time.

I am feeling much more pleased with gardening late in the season, than I was early on. It's not like anything was a spectacular harvest, but we've had food, and made good things... pickles for the first time, and sauerkraut too... It just feels good to know that you had a hand in bringing food to the table, and it makes me hopeful that maybe I'm getting a little better at this gardening thing.