It’s surprisingly cold now, in late November, although dry and clear. As always, we’d love for some of the snow blanketing other parts of the country (hello, six feet in Buffalo!) to bestow its generosity upon us here, but nothing shows in the forecast as yet. Days are crisp and blue, and nights definitely require extra quilts. The sunroom is still full of cardboard trays of slowly ripening tomatoes and peppers; this unheated room works perfectly for cold storage and allows these vegetables to ripen slowly with sunlight but without so much warmth that they’d rot. Certainly something is sacrificed in terms of flavor when crops aren’t allowed to ripen outside, but we have a reasonably short growing season here so we have to work with what we have – and it’s a lovely treat to enjoy our own fresh tomato salads well into winter.

Those cardboard trays are slowly transforming into rustic, delicate ristras and canning jars of salsa and sauce; seeds are mostly dried and packed away. The winter squash bounty hasn’t been tapped into yet; that will carry us through the coldest months and into fragile spring with warming soups and curries. New planting rows for next year have been plowed and filled with compost. The plants we pulled out have been mowed into bits to break down into compost over winter; the beds have been mulched with spent straw and next year’s garlic has been planted. In all ways, our season is gradually winding down and we’re more than ready to tuck ourselves in for a couple of months of much-needed rest.

We’re still reviewing our season, cataloguing our successes and noting what changes and improvements we plan to make for next year. This year certainly had its challenges, but it definitely offered wins, too! Read on for more about the 2022 growing season.

We grow three traditional raspberry varieties plus ‘Anne,’ a yellow cultivar.

Our four rows of raspberries produced spectacularly this year! Early in the season we actually thought we’d lost these plants, but they rallied and for a period of weeks in September we were harvesting a pound or more every morning. Considering the cost of fresh organic raspberries in supermarkets these days, our own homegrown abundance qualified as a cash crop! The rows have some holes where canes have died, so we’ll replant these in the spring and would like to introduce blackberries, too.

Ripe ground cherries are bright yellow with a papery tan husk.

We grow many familiar fruits and vegetables, but we like growing unusual things too. Ground cherries (also called pineapple tomatillos or husk cherries) are absolutely delicious, drought-tolerant and easy to grow. Unlike traditional tomatillos, which grow on tall vining plants similar to tomatoes, ground cherries grow – as you might imagine – on the ground. The tiny fruits are sweet-tart, crisp and delicious, especially once the papery husks have turned from green to beige. They’re also a terrific source of Vitamin C! I’ve saved a lot of seeds this year and am hoping to substantially expand our plantings of this unusual fruit next year.

Quick pickles are so easy and rewarding to make.

Our sweet and hot peppers produced remarkably well. I’ve never before harvested so many green peppers pre-frost – like the tomatoes, these were late starters – and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see how well these green peppers have ripened to red. This weekend I quick-pickled a mix of sweet and hot peppers for a bright, tangy, fresh condiment to use on soups and beans. Many of our hot peppers are dried and turned into chile powder; some are fermented into Tabasco-style hot sauce. Capsaicin is never in short supply here.

A colorful calendula mix bordering one of our raised beds.

We’ve expanded our flower plantings to create beneficial habitat for pollinators, naturally repel insects and because they’re just such a joyous visual pleasure. We primarily grow a mix of calendula, marigolds and cosmos; they’re drought-tolerant and easy to grow, but will be adding hollyhock and zinnia next year. Our area showcases gorgeous self-seeding orange poppies every spring; we’ve not yet had success with these, but I’m hopeful that 2023 will be our year. Flowers bring such simple, uncomplicated joy to our lives here on the farm that I want to plant them everywhere.

Aphids run amok on kale leaves.

This season had some serious challenges, too. Our growing season started late thanks to cool temperatures well into June; the tomatoes were therefore badly stunted and didn’t start producing until early September. We also experienced our first bout of tomato viruses; in our high-plains desert climate, viruses are thankfully rare but this means we don’t have much useful experience in identifying or treating. Our best guess is that many of our plants suffered from beet curly top virus (BCTV) which is insect-vectored and was apparently endemic in our area this year. As a result of this infestation, many of our one hundred tomato plants either didn’t produce at all or produced only a handful of small, inedible fruits. We also struggled with soil nutrient issues, and as a result will be moving all tomato plants to a different growing area next year in order to let the soil rest. After last year’s utterly staggering tomato harvest, this year definitely felt like a bit of a letdown – but it’s also a good reminder that crop rotation and soil health matter – a lot. We successfully grew a few new tomato cultivars, including Amana Orange, Principe Borghese and Evergreen, all of which performed well enough to be added to our seed bank.

And of course the aphids went crazy on the brassicas, as shown above.

Silvery squash bugs and their thousands of coppery eggs are easy to recognize.

While we’re on the topic of crop rotation, we also learned the hard way that moving the squash plants just a few yards to avoid the devastating squash bugs we first noticed last year DOES NOT WORK. Because of climate change, squash bugs are now proving much more of a problem – their larvae can actually overwinter in the soil, as winter temperatures are no longer cold enough to kill them (much like the mountain pine beetle). So the terrible squash bugs that we had at the end of last year were a far bigger problem this year, as they were absolutely everywhere. As a result, squash yields were far lower than expected; on the positive side, I learned how to identify and handpick the coppery eggs off the leaves. As with the tomatoes, we’re relocating the entire patch west of the animal corral next year in a valiant attempt to eradicate our hungry nemesis. I’m not too sad about the loss of the zucchini, but the winter squashes do play a key role in our off-season diet so our poor yields are disappointing, to say the least. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson and can improve next year.

Definitely not thrilled about this paparazzi experience.

We’ve had some unusual wildlife encounters recently, including a bear, a great horned owl, feral cats, numerous hawks and raptors, badgers and this little guy – the North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum). Fun facts: the porcupine is North America’s second-largest rodent after the beaver (Go Beavs!) and the scientific name translates to ‘quill pig.’ They can climb trees and are excellent swimmers. You will likely be the most popular person at your holiday gatherings when you bust out these super-useful trivia tidbits. (Porcupines are also primarily nocturnal, so all credit to N for capturing this incredible photo!)

Such funny creatures – inquisitive yet skittish.

And finally, our four rescue alpacas and our stoic, elegant llama (can you spot him?) remain content, healthy and as stand-offish as ever. We’re so glad to have them, even if our dreams of an alpaca petting zoo will likely never come to fruition.

Thanks for reading, dear friends. We love having you here, too.