Harvest-time and Happy Michaelmas!

Michaelmas-time harvest!

After feasting on your garden’s bounty, watching the growing season wind down is a bit bittersweet, isn’t it?

Yesterday evening, it was down in the 40s at our place and the fourth day of rain. Still, in between showers, I was able to get a nice little picking of three quarts of blueberries!

I also scored a few zucchinis and a handful of tomatoes that hadn’t split from the cold and wet weather.

I’ve never had my Chandler blueberry shrubs still bearing at the end of September, and I expected them to be really sour. What a treat, then, to find them as sweet as the ones I picked three weeks ago.

The tomatoes still had some nice flavor, which was also a nice surprise! 

Today, September 29, is Michaelmas, the traditional feast day celebrating the harvest. As a food gardener, I think about how, back in the day, the harvests were precious—the food had to last for a whole year. 

Here at our place, we’ve got garlic and onions stored to last through the winter; enough potatoes for the next couple of months, and a fridge full of apples. Our second crop of carrots, as well as our parsnips, will be ready for harvesting within a couple of weeks. 

So today, recognizing this olden-times tradition seems like a wonderful way to recognize the fruits of your food-raising labor. 

Today we’ve got a sunny, warmish day, and garden chores are waiting for me! Instead of writing something new, I’m sharing (reposting) our Michaelmas celebration from two years ago…

Michaelmas, or the Feast Day of St. Michael and All the Angels, is an old-timey holiday that was celebrated September 29. 

In the British Isles, Michaelmas traditionally marked the day the grain harvest was pretty much done. People would celebrate with a feast of roast goose and all the trimmings--and the landlords would be pretty happy too because harvest time meant farmers could pay the rent.

Michaelmas also gets a mention in many of the historical BBC series John and I enjoy, created from classic English novels like Jane Austen's or Elizabeth Gaskin's. Those English-country worlds are very idealized, sure, but we all need a wee farm fantasy once in a while!

John and I like to recognize Michaelmas as an early start to the autumn holidays. We set out our set of fall figurines that remind me of an old-fashioned, New England apple farm, and they help brighten the house after the fall rains arrive and darkness comes earlier and earlier. 

We also like to celebrate our own little harvest time. The blueberries are done--we each had our last bowlful of fresh ones this morning--but we're still picking cukes, tomatoes, and zucchini. The fridge is brimming with apples, potatoes and carrots; garlic and onions crowd the pantry.

We definitely won't have roast goose though--a few years back, we bought a crazy-expensive, locally-raised, pastured goose, and I roasted it like turkey. And had to wonder, did I do it wrong? It was tough and gamey- tasting, and given the $40 we spent, we decided never again. 

So I'm preparing beef stew, full of our own vegetables, inspired by a super simple recipe I found in the October issue of Country Living magazine: Braised Beef with Tomatoes and Onions. I'll also make a cucumber salad with the gigantic cuke I found a couple of days ago. And with all the apples around, I think an apple dessert needs to happen. 

After all, with Halloween just around the corner and Thanksgiving not far away, fall is a glorious time!

Back to 2023… Tonight, the harvest moon—that is, the first full moon after the autumn equinox—is a “super moon” so it appears much larger than usual. I hope you’ll take time to gaze at the night sky and enjoy the sight!