The growing season of 2026 did not disappoint!!

You can see the start of our gardens this year HERE.

Even though Tate brought in a bowl of raspberries just yesterday, I think our growing season is almost done.

WOW, did we reap a beautiful harvest!

This was the year for cucumbers!!

Tate did replant our cucumber seeds once because the first ones did not germinate.

We bought our cucumber seeds from Johnny’s Seed and love this variety – Qwerty.

They are pricey!

But now I can say it was worth it!

Our first round of cucumbers we harvested, I just quickly made some refrigerator pickles.

This recipe is from Magnolia, and is delicious!

We decided to make lots of pickle relish this year.

Last year was our first year making this, and everyone loved it.

Tate and I really got in our groove with canning and it was so fun!

We canned our first round of pickle relish at the end of July and canned 8 quarts.

We would measure everything as we chopped with a quart jar, and then used spoons and forks in a mug to keep track of how many quarts of cucumbers and peppers we had added to the bowl.

We also started drying herbs on a low setting in the oven.

We would then grind them up with our hands and put them in jars in our spice cabinet.

They are SO much more flavorful and aromatic than the store bought version!

We always had other things coming in from the gardens too – raspberries and fresh flowers to name a few!

Our second day of canning, we did 9 more quarts of pickle relish.

We still had SO many cucumbers!

Tate would bring in the amount you see on the towel by the sink in the photo below DAILY.

I made a few quarts of more refrigerator pickles.

Then we decided to start canning pickles.

We spent our next canning day (which was the day after the last one!) canning dill pickle chips.

We got 7 quarts of those.

They are delicious!

Meanwhile, I was trying to keep up with all the other things still coming in as well.

I am SO grateful to say we got around 30 quart bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer!

I would wait until we had enough in the fridge to make it worth taking out the food processor, and I would shred them up and freeze them.

We use this zucchini in all kinds of things, and always run out every winter before the next growing season.

Tate grew a lot of watermelon this year!

I cannot remember how many we ate – but they were SO SO GOOD!

Our fourth day of canning was more pickles!!

We decided to do spears this time.

They are so crisp and fresh even after canning them!

We were able to get 6 quarts.

And that ended our canning season for this year, on August 20th.

Our tomatoes did not do well this year.

We got them from a greenhouse, and they were not doing well right from the start.

We probably should have yanked them and started over!

We were able to get several rounds of pico de gallo from them, but no tomato products were canned this year.

We do still have two quarts of ketchup left from last year, and lots of barbeque sauce left too!

We harvested our onions on August 17th.

THIS MADE MY DAY!!

Tate’s onions store so well for us after we cure them, and I really think every meal I make starts with an onion.

I am SO happy to have these onions to use all winter and spring!

We moved the onions inside to finish curing them.

We kept the green stems on for several weeks and spread them carefully so that they would dry properly.

Our basement family room is also our greenhouse!!

After a couple of week we cut the dried greens off, and cured them again for a couple of weeks.

Then it was time to store them in a crate in our storage room pantry area.

Look at the beauty of the gardens the day we pulled the onions!

It is Tate and my happy place for sure – so much joy in caring for these plants and reaping their harvest!!

We had another big harvest on Labor Day.

Blake and Tate also put some time in redeeming the gardens a bit.

Blake tied up the raspberries and they did so much better once trellised!

We harvested all of the leeks, all of the cabbage, more herbs, and some other random things!

I cleaned the leeks and cabbage really well and stored them in zip loc bags in the downstairs refrigerator.

They will keep well like this for many months!!

Our last big harvest was about two weeks ago,

Tate grew kale TREES this year – those kale plants are stout and hardy!

I pull kale from them all the time and even feed a lot of it to the goats and chickens!

We got a lot of peppers that day.

We froze most of our jalapeños whole, and froze our bell peppers either quartered or chopped.

I reach in the freezer for peppers all winter long and am so thankful for them!!

We have made so many notes about our gardens this year!

And of course are already dreaming about our gardens next year!!

I am not sure I will be able to pull all of this off when the children are grown and gone someday – so I am living this garden life to the fullest while I can!!

The weather is beautiful here right now – nothing like fall in SW Wisconsin!!

We enjoyed this bowl of raspberries with dinner last night, and there are still more coming in!

There are also beautiful herbs and lots of delicious kale out there still!

So our garden season 2026 is not quite over yet!

But it was a good one!!!

Good job, Tate Owen!!!

It brings us SO MUCH JOY to watch you learn, enjoy, and thrive in the things you love!!