As of a few days ago, our weather has finally transitioned to a semblance of fall. Hooray! This means long pants and socks again in the house, hot cocoa for dessert (with homemade marshmallows, of course), and transitioning to the cool-weather garden and homesteading chores.

We’re planting and re-planting around here, as well as harvesting and pulling up some of the last bits of summer from our plots. Our tomatoes are giving their final fruits, and our peppers exploded with fruit during the summery weather a week or so ago:

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Okra has slowed down considerably, from collecting about 15-20 pods a day, to about five every two days:

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Our spring lettuces (especially arugula) are coming back with a vengeance, as well as some sneaky catnip amongst the squash and weeds:

And speaking of “weeds,” these are the beautiful things that happen when you don’t mow your lawn every other day and let things just happen sometimes:

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But let’s talk winter plants. Or rather, show them:

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We’re pretty stoked around here to finally have our own greens growing in the backyard for many reasons. One, the actual monetary price of the greens was the seeds, water, and some of the soil we used to grow them. They’re relatively cheap at the farmer’s market, but I’ll take the price of a seed packet and my mornings outside any day. Two, they’re easy to grow, labor-wise, in comparison to other more fickle garden veggies, such as tomatoes and even basil, and they grow quickly with a lot of return. Three, we get to use as much of them as we want (and more than we might want), without having to worry if we “bought enough.” I made a killer kale salad alongside a goat cheese and kale quiche last week, and I can do it again this week if I wanted to. Basically, if you like greens, you have a garden space, and you don’t think you have a “green thumb,” try your hand at growing them – you may surprise yourself! Oh, and watch out for brassica moths – those guys are jerks.

Anyway, I could talk greens for days, but those discussions and recipes can come in another post (including that quiche I mentioned – when I make it again, I’ll let y’all in on the recipe. Why am I not posting it now? Because we may or may not have eaten the whole thing before I took a picture. Oops).

A little over a week ago, we continued our fall planting, including beginning to work on the front side of the property with our pollinator garden. But first, our exciting new addition to the berry/fruit side of things:

Bits and pieces of our front yard now have sochan, milkweed (not pictured, since they’re just roots now), and passionflower (you know, the one I was talking about in my sustainability post):

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That’s all, folks! I’ll leave you with a shot of our neato rain barrels for today. Until next time, happy homesteading and baking!