One of our nightly rituals this time of year is to check the garden. This year, we have the nicest looking garden ever thanks to a rear-tine tiller we bought from my mom. It makes walking through the rows much more pleasant.
Everything is going great guns. The green beans are blossoming and will be loaded in about a week or ten days. The cucumbers are starting to produce; not enough to make a batch of dill pickles yet, which is good because my dill patch isn’t quite ready yet, either. Through a process of trial and error, I have discovered that in order to make palatable dill pickles, you must use the pickling cucumbers, not the slicing cucumbers. Whoda thunk it?!
We are going to have squash coming out of our ears, I think. Nasty stuff...can’t stand it. Captain likes it, though, so I make it for him, and I eat PB&J sandwiches that meal.
The cabbages are coming right along, and one is nearly ready to be turned into sauerkraut...also nasty stuff in my book. The conundrum here is that sauerkraut processing is Captain’s deal, not mine, except he is going to be gone all next week fishing in Canada which is about when the cabbage will all be ready to process into kraut. Too bad, so sad...not gonna happen on my watch! I’ll make freezer coleslaw but not sauerkraut!
The tomato vines are loaded with fruit, but those won’t be ready for another month or so. That will give me time to get the beans done, which is awesome since last year we had a complete crop failure on the green bean front, and we went all winter with no canned green beans to enjoy.
I am especially keeping an eye on things as I have entered some open class projects for the Olmsted County fair next week. I had some things at the Dodge County fair last week and had a respectable showing. I think I may have been a little overzealous in my entries at Olmsted, though, seeing as there are 19 different “projects” that I signed up for. What is wrong with me?!
One of the large-scale canning projects I do this time of year is vegetable soup. I don’t have all what I need in my garden for that so I am going to check out the Amish vegetable auction next week and get potatoes, carrots, and onions. Maybe green peppers, too. Actually, much of that depends on the tomatoes because the soup has a tomato base. Hmmm...will have to ponder that. Well, that stuff will all keep for a few weeks until the tomatoes are ready, right? Once I have everything gathered for that, it is an all-day project...as in about 12 straight hours...that gives us about 35 pints of tasty vegetable soup for the winter. The nice thing is when we cook it in the winter, we can add some type of meat to it to jazz it up a bit.
Tonight I will spend the evening after work canning a lug of peaches that Mama Bear picked up for me at a truckload sale in Rochester over the weekend. I’m hoping to get at least 16 pints from that. I’ve never done peaches before, so wish me luck!
Every year when we plant the garden, I am so excited about everything that will grow. Then we get to mid summer when everything DID grow and now I have to do something with it, and I get overwhelmed and frazzled. And hot and cranky. However, when it’s the middle of January and 40 below zero outside and we are eating canned vegetables from our own garden, I am back to excited and proud.
Oh, and if anyone likes or wants kale...please, please, please come to my house and get some! I have it in my mutant whiskey barrel (I thought it was ornamental cabbage, not actual kale) and it is monstrous! We have discovered that we don’t like kale even though we like spinach and Swiss chard. Oh well, live and learn!
Images used from:
http://uberhumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/4KvZD2.jpg
http://rlv.zcache.ca/old_gardeners_greeting_card-r61215c3ea078492c9671efbf446946ff_xvuak_8byvr_324.jpg
http://hngideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/C.L.-Fornari-garden-saying-905x1024.jpg?7e3a7c
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