Over the weekend, we froze two quarts of green and wax beans.
Chopped and froze a good quart of banana peppers.
I made a pint of tomato sauce from the tomatoes that I roasted with some garlic and some herbs. Will use that later on for pizza sauce, but for now it's in the freezer. Love roasted tomatoes; they're very smoky and the sauce is thicker than you get with just simmering sauce.
And dehydrated four trays of thick slices of tomatoes....took a little longer because they were thicker slices, but they are really good; I sprinkled them with a bit of pepper and some basil and oregano.
The beans are still flowering profusely, so we're going to get beans for a while yet. The broccoli is done....a lot of it bolted while we were in Wisconsin. (But over the course of the summer, I think we got about 8 quarts of broccoli, so that's not too bad.) The banana peppers are still flowering; I don't pick those peppers until they're fairly large, or as large as I think they're going to get. The younger they are, the hotter they are, so I let them go a bit. Then I wash them well, seed them, and then chop or slice them.
Tomatoes are coming on. As they start to get redder, we've been picking them and putting them on a card table in the basement to finish ripening. That's the only way we know of to stop them from cracking....pick them before they're fully ripe. We haven't had a cracked tomato yet this year and that was a big problem last year. The tomatoes are doing well.....they'd be doing better if the darn deer would leave them alone!
(One word, baby -- VENISON!
) We've never had this much trouble with deer. Never. They are knocking the plants, cages and all, right over. Even though we've even netted the tomatoes. We've netted pretty much everything. And I mentioned that we already lost all the corn....never got even one ear. They've really done damage this year. They ate the tops right off the bean plants; but all that really did was make the plants really bushy. Really bushy plants mean a lot of beans!!!
The lima beans that we planted didn't really do well. I don't know that we'll try them again.
We have one zucchini plant left and it has flowers again, so the zucchini will be coming in soon. The cucumbers are doing well....I'm going to start a batch of pickles tomorrow night, just not sure what kind of pickles, probably lime pickles as I love them.
So far we've done two batches of cinnamon pickles, a batch of lime pickles, six pints of red onions with honey (and I still have enough red onions to get another six pints or so), and 18 half-pint jars of old farmhouse chutney. I did four quarts of freezer cabbage, too, but gave two quarts to my sister. I'm thinking about doing some peaches, too, as that would make a nice change from applesauce for Rick's lunches. He said if I wanted to do some peaches, he'd help me.
I think that next year, we're going to increase the garden size again. Rick says pretty soon we'll be talking truck patch!
And that's how our garden is doing. How are yours??
Chopped and froze a good quart of banana peppers.
I made a pint of tomato sauce from the tomatoes that I roasted with some garlic and some herbs. Will use that later on for pizza sauce, but for now it's in the freezer. Love roasted tomatoes; they're very smoky and the sauce is thicker than you get with just simmering sauce.
And dehydrated four trays of thick slices of tomatoes....took a little longer because they were thicker slices, but they are really good; I sprinkled them with a bit of pepper and some basil and oregano.
The beans are still flowering profusely, so we're going to get beans for a while yet. The broccoli is done....a lot of it bolted while we were in Wisconsin. (But over the course of the summer, I think we got about 8 quarts of broccoli, so that's not too bad.) The banana peppers are still flowering; I don't pick those peppers until they're fairly large, or as large as I think they're going to get. The younger they are, the hotter they are, so I let them go a bit. Then I wash them well, seed them, and then chop or slice them.
Tomatoes are coming on. As they start to get redder, we've been picking them and putting them on a card table in the basement to finish ripening. That's the only way we know of to stop them from cracking....pick them before they're fully ripe. We haven't had a cracked tomato yet this year and that was a big problem last year. The tomatoes are doing well.....they'd be doing better if the darn deer would leave them alone!
The lima beans that we planted didn't really do well. I don't know that we'll try them again.
We have one zucchini plant left and it has flowers again, so the zucchini will be coming in soon. The cucumbers are doing well....I'm going to start a batch of pickles tomorrow night, just not sure what kind of pickles, probably lime pickles as I love them.
So far we've done two batches of cinnamon pickles, a batch of lime pickles, six pints of red onions with honey (and I still have enough red onions to get another six pints or so), and 18 half-pint jars of old farmhouse chutney. I did four quarts of freezer cabbage, too, but gave two quarts to my sister. I'm thinking about doing some peaches, too, as that would make a nice change from applesauce for Rick's lunches. He said if I wanted to do some peaches, he'd help me.
I think that next year, we're going to increase the garden size again. Rick says pretty soon we'll be talking truck patch!
And that's how our garden is doing. How are yours??
Last edited: