Garden update – Canning and preserving has begun!

typical dinner harvest

 

Wow, once again this week got away from me!  I have been so busy canning and preserving the garden bounty that I have been neglectful in posting.  Today’s garden update includes a lot of canning and food preservation.

On my way out to the garden I saw this Rose of Sharon in full bloom and swarmed with bees.

hibiscus blooming and buzzing with bees

Cherry tomatoes are slowly ripening daily…cherry tomatoes are ripening daily

and the peppers

cherry hot peppers turning red

are going crazy.

banana peppers are growing like crazy

Here is what I picked one day to make cucumber pickles and pickled hot peppers.

first canning harvestHubs was in charge of most of the harvest through the week and though he better not pick too much.  That is how a zucchini will get away from you fast.  This is possibly the world’s largest zucchini.  For scale, those are 4″ wide deck boards, so she’s about 20″ long.  This got shredded in the food processor and jarred up for the freezer.

worlds largest zucchiniWe are typically picking something like this each day for dinner.  Stuffed banana peppers and a cucumber, pepper salad sprinkled with cherry tomatoes as our side dishes and maybe some grilled zucchini too.

typical dinner harvest

The little tomatoes are just starting to come in and we are waiting patiently for this guy to turn red.

waiting for red on this tomato

Then there is the remote garden.  More zucchini, tons more cukes, peppers and almost a half bushel of green beans.

remote garden harvest

Also some exciting things are happening at the remote garden.

yellow transparent apple

The Yellow Transparent early apples are ready.  We had major fruit drop on this tree, so there are only a few.  The deer and rabbit ate well though.  Baby pumpkins are developing nicely.

Baby pumpkin...awww

I froze 18 pints of green beans so far.  I’m just starting to freeze some peppers for winter use.  Pickled 8 pints of cucumbers and 6 pints of hot peppers.  I have also made dandelion jelly, strawberry, gooseberry and raspberry jam 3 or 4 pints of each, depending on the recipe.  Here is a grouping of some of these items here.

first canning batch 2015

A great farm kid August lunch.

farm kid august lunch

Peanut butter and gooseberry jam sandwich, cherry tomatoes and the first handful of husk cherries.  Yummy.

 

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