Finding My Collar Bones

[chefk]

you have to post a picture of this "garden". It sounds more like a farm!

[smay]

Took some garden pictures on the camera today, and i will download them hopefully tonight or tomorrow. I think after this last tomato picking, we are finally winding down with the early girls and beefsteak varieties. Our heirlooms are just starting to ripen, so that will be more spaghetti sauce!! I also need to take a picture of all of the canned goods first.

[Kyan]

I can't even imagine how much work it is, to can. But then how nice it would be to HAVE all that stuff!

I can't wait to see the pictures!

[smay]

Photo Friday!

First an update from yesterday. Spent the day looking for a suitable suitcase (doubly funny, since we need it for a suit) to carry-on. Drove all over town, and called various out-of-town stores. If I drove 60+ miles, I could buy one for $400. Went to another nearby town after the husband got home from work too, and no luck. I did figure out a solution (I think) with our current garment bag and those aluminum hiker clip thingies to make it carry on size.

Food was good. I don't think I ate enough or often enough due to my hectic day. So, by 6:00 I had a raging headache, and it didn't go away for hours. Husband got the kids to bed and I was in bed before 9:30. No gym again, and tomorrow we fly fly away for the weekend.

Okay, pictures of the garden. The june bearing is the top tier of the strawberry patch. They've sent out beautiful runners already. Everbearing are still producing a little.

Strawberry Fields Forever or at least an 8x8 square

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The garden. The far left has cattle panels with concord grapes growing on them. 25 tomato plants which are starting to look rough, 8 jalapeno peppers, 2 cucumbers which were vining everywehre (finally dying!!!), two watermelons, and a few carrots.

The garden as of Sept. 1

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Ripening concorde grapes! We only have 2 bunches this year, as the vines are just a few years old so far.

grape jelly, anyone?

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To be continued, as I can only add 3 attachments per post I guess...

[Kyan]

How freaking COOL!

I LOVE the grapes!!!

[JeffInJax]

Looks delicious, id try to do a garden here, but the subdivision i live in is infamous for moles, they destroy the lawn/ground so im sure they would wreck a garden too!

[smay]

My husband's future apple orchard. One established tree (of unknown variety) that came with the house, and we've planted 2 Honeycrsip semi-dwarves, 1 regular crabapple, one semi-dwarf crabapple, and 1 dwarf meteor cherry tree. Of the rest of the trees, the crabapple produced 2 crabapples this year. We are hoping for a few more next year, as most of the trees will be 3-4 years old at that time.

Fruit Trees!

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Our Pumpkins, vining along the side of the garage. We only have 2 decent sized ones (and they are small pie pumpkins) growing there. I finally figured out why we are having such a poor turnout. It's the damn rabbits. It's one of the few things we don't have fenced in... My 4 year old son started them as seedlings. He's very proud of his pumpkins. I'm guessing he'll want to carve them, and I want to process and freeze them!

Cinderella's Carriage Patch

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SALSA! I don't need to say any more! Except maybe that that I feel like the "Time to Make the Donuts" guy every time my husband brings in another 30 or more tomatoes...

I need to buy stock in Ball and Kerr

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[Kyan]

This is me, jealous!

That salsa especially makes me drool!

[smay]

Okay, one more post. Freezer spaghetti sauce. I have 3 quarts in the freezer of the spare fridge in the basement. The other 6 quarts are in the deep freeze buried under all of that salsa right now. Each 3 quart batch takes 16 cups of diced tomatoes. We try to use our colorful heirlooms for the sauce. We are going to have quite a few more batches to make in the next few weeks, and the heirloom tomatoes seem to ripen later.

Spaghetti Sauce for Whole Wheat turkey lasagna with fresh ball mozzarella

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[Kyan]

Are those chunks of green pepper I see? That looks awesome! So how many quarts does it take to make a batch of spaghetti? One? Would that mean you have 9 dinners of future spaghetti frozen?

[JeffInJax]

Thanks smay, you're so talented at making everyone jealous

lol just teasing, well not really but its a lot of hard work. Sadly i found myself laughing at work "Cinderellas pumpkin carriage" hmmm, i dont think ive ever seen a rabbit around my house but im sure your garden attracts them! If i was nearby id likely be like those two hobbits who always sneak into the garden for yummy stuff.

[smay]

1 quart to a small pan of my lasagna. We save it all for lasagna. I covet the lasagna with this sauce. We happily share whatever we can, like the salsa and jams and jellies, but I DO NOT SHARE THE SAUCE! You have to be on a very short list to get invited over for a dinner with that lasagna as well.

Lasagna...

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Jeff - I don't want shoeless hairy hobbit feet in my garden, any more than bunny feet! The sauce is my precious...

[Kyan]

OMG I can see why! That lasagna looks fabulous!!! MMMMMMMMmmm!

[Kyan]

Ok Smay, I hope you had a fairly Beachy weekend! If not, brush yourself off and let's keep going here!

[chefk]

Wow, that's CRAZY! I wish I could grow anything but weeds. My garden started out great the first year and just went downhill from there. I'm jealous!