Things are getting busy!
This past weekend we hosted a family-neighborhood picnic (with a couple of overnight guests) so we were super busy – but NOT in the garden. Putting up food was put on hold. Getting in the garden had to wait.
But the garden waits for no one, as you shall see! 🙂
An Abundance of Cucumbers on My Counter Right Now
And a zucchini from my Dad’s garden. 😀
Every weekend from now until the end of the growing season, we will need to be in the garden and in the kitchen. Even weeknights – like last night – will probably find at least one of us cleaning veggies, chopping, canning, or freezing.
Sweet Pickle Chunks
No rest for the happy gardener! Last night after Mr. Gordon came home from his day job (he works both from home and also goes into the office once or twice a week), he rolled up his sleeves and went to (home)work on putting up some of the huge cucumbers he found hiding in the garden. Mr. Gordon bases his recipe on the one fund here:
Don’t throw away those big orange overripe cucumbers.
My mother loves these. I think she puts them on… mashed potatoes. 😉 Hey, whatever floats your boat!
More… Pickles!
The little jar of Dilly Beans is a gift from our niece Abbey. She brought it as a house-warming gift this past weekend. (She’s a sweetie!) I’m thinking of diving into them for a taste this weekend.
And we’re making more tonight! 😀
Meanwhile, Tomatoes
It’s usually a race between us and the little critters for the tomatoes. As much as I’d like to fully ripen the tomatoes on the vine, we just can’t always do that. Too risky. It’s actually a mouse problem. We’ve seen them. *sigh*
And more coming…
We have big weekend plans. We need to get into those tomato plants – find out what might be ready to pick, harvest more beets and carrots, and we have SO MUCH celery. I have no idea what we are going to do with it all!
Then there are the radishes…. the corn… the potatoes… Yes, this weekend will be VERY busy!
How about YOURS?
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Oh my! You are certainly busy! I have cucumbers that are wanting to be turned into pickles. I’m hoping tomorrow or the weekend will allow time for processing. I have some currants that really want to be made into jam. And I just picked some rosehips at a friend’s house. Not sure what to do with those yet.
I wish my garden had taken off this year but alas, that’s part of being a gardener I guess. I’ll just have to live vicariously through you!!
And what a sweet niece to bring you those dilly beans!
Hi Kristin – rose hips! That is awesome. You can make them into a tea, I believe. Let me know how that goes! It is definitely a constant go-go-go with the garden. My chamomile – speaking of tea – did beautifully, but I only harvested a bit. I suppose I should harvest more, but it’s just so pretty.
We have SO MANY jars of fermenting pickles. My husband is the pickle maker and primary pickle eater. He picked even more cucumbers this past Saturday. The Double Yield variety really does yield well!
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting! 😀
Sadly I read up on the rose hips and I picked too soon. They need a frost in order to really let their flavor out. But I’m sure I’ll be back at my friend’s house sooner or later. She has a TON of rose hips so I think she’ll be okay with me picking more. I put the currants in the freezer until later. And I got all my cucumbers turned into pickles. The Mister loves bread and butter pickles so I always have to make a few jars for him for the year. It’s a wonderful time of year!
Wow! What great work. I battle some of the same problems in my garden/harvest…beating the critters (in our case it’s the squirrels) to the produce and finding the time to get it all preserved in some manner!
We did get 40 pounds of tomatoes processed this week into salsa and spaghetti sauce, so that felt great! Can’t wait to see what else you put up this season.
Hi Bekah – 40 pounds of tomatoes, whew! That is awesome. We’ve never made salsa – probably won’t this year because our yield is smaller – but I’d like to do that some year. What variety do you like for salsa?
SQUIRRELS. We don’t have too many around here because our property doesn’t have a lot of trees, but I remember when we lived in the city (a lot of huge Norwalk Maples) we had so many squirrels. Any time I put out something even decorative – like fall corn – they would rip through it like a buffet!
Thanks a bunch for stopping by our post! We’ll be adding more updates soon! 😀