This month it's gardening in September! This is my monthly gardening feature where I show you everything I'm doing in the garden month-by-month!
If you've been following along in this gardening by month series, you'll know that 2022 has been one of the strangest growing seasons.
We started off the summer with extremely cold temperatures with very wet and rainy weather. This gave my garden such a slow start I wasn't sure I'd even get a harvest of my warmer climate-loving crops.
But in late July, a flip was switched, and things heated up to where we were having extremely hot and dry temperatures that finally kicked things into gear.
By September, most of the garden is on autopilot, so this video is more of a garden tour than gardening tasks, but it's always inspiring to see what others are doing in their gardens. I hope you enjoy it.
Be sure to also join me for the Traditional Skills Summit, September 12-15th, 2022 where I'll be joining 11 other homesteaders sharing our years of cumulative homesteading knowledge. I'll be sharing ways to extend the growing season both in the spring and fall.
Tasks for the Garden in September
- Start identifying crops to save seeds from. I save seeds from my family's Tarheel green beans each year, so I'm taking inventory of the pods that, if we get an early frost, will be mature enough to save from. This is one reason it's smart to save enough seeds for two years, as we're not always able to save seeds properly due to the weather. Learn more on how to seed save here properly.
- Harvest crops as they're ready. We're still getting a lot of zucchini growing on the vine. When the zucchini is the size you're used to seeing in the grocery store, that's your visual indicator that it's time to pick them. How you want to cook the zucchini will determine some of the harvestings. The smaller, more delicate zucchini are great for grilling or slicing. If you let them get bigger, they will have larger seeds and be better for grating for something like my chocolate zucchini bread, blueberry zucchini muffins or zucchini relish (check out these 144 other ways to use up all your zucchini here).
- Harvesting medicinal herbs and flowers as they're ready. Learn more about how to grow a medicinal herb garden here. I also shared how to use rose hips for medicinal purposes and their benefits.
Everything Worth Preserving
As I mentioned preserving zucchini, you may be curious about how to preserve the rest of the crops you have coming in from the garden.
I'm so excited about my new book, Everything Worth Preserving, where I discuss, crop by crop, all the ways to safely preserve them at home, including recipes.
This is THE preserving book I always wished I could find but never could. It includes an A-Z list of every fruit and vegetable, all the safe methods of preservation, and recipes for preserving them.
You can pre-order your copy of Everything Worth Preserving right here and grab some bonuses as a thank you from me for pre-ordering my book.
Gardening Tasks by Month
More Posts You May Enjoy
- How to Preserve Zucchini (plus my favorite fresh zucchini recipe)
- 10 Methods of Food Preservation at Home
- How to Make Celery Salt (Preserve Celery)
- New Gardening Techniques & Varieties to Grow in 2022
- Soil Remediation – How to Fix Tainted Soil
- Wood Chips for Garden Mulch (Beneficial or Not?)
- Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies for a Healthier Garden
- How to Grow a Large Scale Garden Without Acreage
Interested in canning and food preservation.
Me too, especially water bath method.
Do you ever sell your bean seeds?
When saving our been seeds, do they have to dry on the vine?? My kids picked most of the beans, including our large pods. They are right at the edge of green bean/shelled bean stage. Can we just let them dry out inside, or in the sun? We obtained tar heel this year and want to be sure to keep them going! They are wonderful in our WA garden!
They will dry off the vine, the key is making sure they’re fully developed at the time of harvest (so large beans inside the pod but also starting to turn yellow, overripe).