Saturday, June 25, 2011

First Harvests


We are beginning to enjoy the fruits of our labor as our little garden* veges and potted cherry tomatoes begin to ripen. Taylor, my granddaughter, and Pops will slice up the little cukes to make some quick refrigerator pickles. I'll bet the hot pepper somehow makes its way into the mason jar!
* not the co-op garden.

Our blackberry/black raspberries will be turned into some nice jelly, seedless for my benefit. A few years ago we picked so many pounds of both strawberries and blackberries that not only did we have fresh berries and jelly but also blackberry sorbet which was absolutely wonderful.

We have plans to try some relishes this year so out comes the Ball recipe book to begin the selections. Zucchini is one of my favorites, grilled or sauteed, but I have never canned it so this may be the year.

We're still fighting the Japanese beetles that have infested the roses, grapes, berries and bushes or risk losing everything, very quickly. There are far too many to pick off.

We are going to take Taylor to my brother-in-law's house and let the kids swim while we set up the picnic and BBQ; however, due to impending rain it's been scheduled for tomorrow at either their place or perhaps ours, although without swimming. Taylor's mom, my daughter, will pick her up soon after church so swimming may not work depending on their plans.

We need the rain, sort of a crazy statement considering the overabundance we have had, but the garden is showing signs of drying, some of the leafy vegetables are wilting so this should help. I may have to give it a drink just in case. I have been hesitant to turn on the water due to our well switch conditions. If it turns off I can't possibly get back to the house fast enough to keep the water from draining back down into the well and having to bleed off the water with a hose stretched across the basement so sand doesn't get back into our system again. I'll post on that later! What a mess.

3 comments:

TLW said...

A very beautiful bounty, enjoy. Cukes look like they'd make great pickles.

Manny said...

Already! I guess when you start seeds indoors they produce earlier. Your veggies must be about a month ahead of my mothers. Well, maybe a little less than that; let's say three weeks. Very nice.

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

The black rasberries always come in a little earlier than the blackberries but the blackberries typically ripen in July, so we're awful close. The zucchini, in this bed, I believe may be have been purchased transplants but the cucumbers were from seeds. Nothing happened for awhile but we got a warm spell where everything started taking off. I saw some beans developing too in the larger garden.