September 24, 2013

Fall is here.  The garden is nearly done.  The yellow tomatoes are finally producing.  I made a second batch of tomato soup and got 24 pints. I made 2 quarts of tomato juice yesterday. I have some tomatoes in the freezer that I will make into juice also.  I have been putting tomatoes in the freezer to made the soup when I had time, and that worked really well.  

We picked the rest of the peppers, I've put most of them in the freezer to use in soup.

I tried a mixed pepper seed package and got purple peppers, this one is starting to ripen and is a pretty shade of dark red.  

We had a low of 49 degrees about a week ago.  We've had several days right around the equinox with cool, sprinkly weather.  Not rainy, since we haven't had much of that this year.

Our neighbor has just finished combining his corn, after which we had two days of high wind to make sure that shucks are cleaned out of that field and blown into our yard, patio and flower garden.  

This has been a pretty nice summer, without very many hot days.  The beginning of September we had several days nearing and over 100 degrees. 

We seem to have given up on the flower gardens.  I am hoping that I will have energy enough next year to start from the beginning of the season. 

August 26, 2013

The past couple of weeks, I've put up a few things.  This batch of bread and butter pickles, for one.

I've frozen 10 qts of beans.  We got 4 qts of our own grapes, and I made a batch of jelly and froze a pint of juice.  

I also made a batch of strawberry/raspberry jelly from last year's fruit from the freezer and bought peaches to make a batch of peach jam. The strazzberry is a hit.  1 cup raspberries and 5 cups strawberries.

I've been chopping what zucchini and summer squash I have to put in the freezer to put in soup.

Mom came this weekend with tomatoes from her garden and we made a huge batch of tomato soup, 23 1/2 pints. 

Today I've done 3 qts of beans for the freezer and have two 5 gallon buckets of huge cucumbers.  Do I give them to the chickens or make cinnamon pickles out of them?  

Stay tuned for further announcements.  

August 1, 2013

Sweet corn season is in full swing.  My folks came a week ago and helped freeze corn.  That time we had 11 dozen ears and froze 44 pints.  They went to a school reunion for the weekend and came back on Monday and we did 21 dozen ears that produced 77 pints.  My mom is a glutton for punishment.  It was a big day, but we will be glad to have the corn.  That is the most we've ever done at one time.   We usually plan to do smaller batches, but with the cool spring this year the first rows didn't sprout until the later ones did, so we had a bunch ready all at once.

Our yellow squash has died, but I am going to freeze zucchini.  I've discovered I like it in my soups.

July 25, 2013

We have been eating sweet corn for a couple of days.  It is very nice to find out that I can gnaw sweet corn off a cob, chew and swallow without having a coughing fit more than once.  My folks came today to help put up the first batch, which was a good thing, since yesterday I spent looking after my three grandsons, while my daughter had a class, and I was tired.  Jim picked, Mom and Jim shucked, silked and cut out bad spots, buggy spots, and worms. I boiled, Jim cut, Mom scraped cobs and bagged.  I cleaned up, served supper from the crockpot (into which I had with the meat, potatoes, onions and zucchini from the garden), our company cleaned up, and I collapsed.

11 dozen ears, 44 pints in the freezer.  A good day.

July 23, 2013

Yesterday, I canned two and a half quarts of beet pickles. Too bad I spilled boiling water on my foot.  I put ice cold rags on the burn, then triple antibiotic and it isn't hurting anymore.  It is doing really well.
We are eating our onions and potatoes now, and we ate our first sweet corn two days ago.  Tonight we had our first sauteed summer squash, but I let it get too brown while I was juggling the rest of supper.
I brought it five stalks of gladioli (that's correct for plurality I believe), put them in a vase that is rapidly becoming antique and they are beautiful.

July 4. 2013

We didn't plant a great variety or much of anything.  I picked the first spinach a week ago and chopped it into my soup.  This was my harvest today.  The peas and peppers went into stirfry, some of the pepper and the swiss chard went into soup.  The beets are for tomorrow.  The beets are past ready, and I need to plant more swiss chard and spinach, they are bolting, but I think I'll wait until it gets cooler.

Since today is Independence Day, Fireworks Day, Remember the Patriots Day, and Remember our Freedom Day, we are going to watch the country club fireworks from the deck tonight.  Probably under a blanket.  Not so much from the cold, but from bugs.  There aren't mosquitoes, it's been too dry, but the gnats are a pain.

Oops, I'm using onions, too, forgot them for the stirfry. 

July 2, 2013

We are slow gardeners this year.  We have picked a few peas, I made soup from the spinach, Jim is weeding, all a little bit at a time.  

We are making stabs at the flower garden, which is way out of control, and we found this little guy just hanging out while we worked.  An hour only gets us a square yard.

And to prove why this season is as slow as we are.  This is May 1st.