One month after the solstice, I can feel the long, slow descent into winter beginning.  We're racing the shortening days now.

Even though it seems strange to be thinking of winter in July, we're in the middle of planting the fall garden.  I'm also putting in cover crops (more on those in a later post) to add organic matter to beds that will remain fallow until garlic planting time or until the spring.  It's already too late to direct seed anything except bush beans, lettuce, greens, and garlic unless we plan to protect the crops from frost.

Meanwhile, I'm preserving the harvest as fast as I can.  I've got 8.75 gallons of vegetables and a gallon of fruit in the freezer, along with 0.8 gallons of dried vegetables and 1.3 gallons of dried fruit.  Although it feels like a lot of food, I hope to freeze at least 30 gallons of vegetables (exluding tomato sauces) this year, so we've got a long way to go.

Even though I start itching for the garden in January and February, I have to admit that I'm looking forward to the fall now.  I'm ready to tackle some of those long-term projects we can't even think about during the summer months (and I wouldn't mind sleeping past 6 AM either.)  Still, I can't find much to complain about when the first pizza of the year is on the horizon.