Monday, June 14, 2010

What I've Been Up To Lately

Last week, I canned 28 pints of sweet pickles with cucumbers from our garden. I use the recipe found on Mrs. Wage's Lime packaging. It works beautifully everytime making crisp, flavorful sweet pickles. Also, we've had an outstanding crop of yellow squash due to the perfectly timed rains recently.

The potatoes are producing nicely also. Husband Gardener will dig those "officially" in about another week. He has been pilfering the potato vines for over a month--digging a few here and there for those delicious first fruits of the summer. We thoroughly enjoy the creamy new potatoes. Their peels just scrap off without much resistance.

My wonderful husband was raised in a family of 8 who depended on "saving" everything they grew in their garden. Therefore, he plants gardens (yes, plural) large enough to supply vegetables for many, many people. There are only the 2 of us in our household, but we canned 70 quarts of green beans last Saturday! We have about 65 quarts from last summer's bounty still residing in the pantry!

When our daughters visit, they always do a little "home shopping" from our pantry and well-stocked freezer as we have blackberries, cherries, pecans, peas (2 kinds), corn, bell peppers and butter beans there. All 3 households of us still don't use all there is in the pantry and freezer each year!

We are fortunate that Husband Gardener loves growing things. Now if I can just get him to temper his zeal with a little self-control. Oh! Besides the garden, he has over 15 laying hens that I have to figure out who to give all those eggs to every week. Last week, I dropped a dozen off for my doctor at the Cholesterol Clinic in my cardiologist's office!

The chalk board above tells the saga of our garden. All this above and counting! This week we'll probably freeze corn. There will be butter beans in July for sure as we just had rain today. I look forward to tomatoes by the 4th of July!

Well, you know where you will find me for the next month. Stay tuned. I'll be updating the "tote board" from time to time.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Grammy, my name is Sue, so nice to meet you, Wow! it looks a sthough you have been busy like me canning. Your pickles and beans look so delicious. We will be canning corn and peas this week. Canning is a lot of work , but the effort is well worth it. Our children love to go in the pantry and carry some goodies home with them when they come too. I so enjoyed my visit. Enjoy your day.
    Sue

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