Canning frenzy

The trouble with canning, I've found, is once I start, it's hard to stop.

It began with peas. While cleaning out and inventorying our chest freezer, I came across two gallons of peas from the garden in our last place. At the time I harvested them, we were selling the house. It was a busy summer and I didn't have time to can anything, so I put them in the freezer ... and forgot about them.  Those were the first things to get canned.

Then, a couple days later, Don and I were driving through a nearby town when we saw one of those traveling fruit vendors. Instantly we pulled over and purchased two boxes of peaches (which, let the record show, had fewer quantity and higher prices than past purchases; but yowza they were delicious!). We had been trying to chase down this fruit vendor for several weeks, but didn't know his schedule. (Now we have his business card.) From this bounty, I canned up 15 quarts of peaches; the rest we ate fresh. Peaches are – hands down and by a wide margin – my all-time favorite fruit.

Lastly, of course, I canned the blueberries.

I'm also washing and selling some surplus canning jars that didn't sell at the yard sale. Most of these are half-pint jam and jelly jars, which I simply don't use.

Have I mentioned how much I love fall? Canning and autumn are forever entwined in my mind.

Hmm .... what can I can up next? Hopefully by this time next year, our garden will be up and running, and I'll have lots more ways to celebrate fall.

Garden update

Despite the cool wet start to summer, the garden has actually done very well this year. Here's a walk-through.

Grapes. They're not ripe yet, of course, but show a lot of promise. There's just nothing prettier than grape vines.

Herbs. I grow parsley, thyme, sage, oregano, basil, rosemary, spearmint, and horseradish. Here's the parsley, starting to go to seed. I'll save some of the seeds for our next homestead, but in the meantime it will seed its own bed for next year's crop.

Oregano.

Spearmint. This is my garden candy. I actually don't care for mint tea in any form, but I simply adore the smell. This lush bed started from one small plant I impulsively bought a few years ago at a local hardware store, and it spread to fill an enormous tire with perfume. (One of the advantages to gardening in tires it it's easy to contain things that like to spread, like mint.)

Rosemary and basil.

Raspberries. The fruit season is past, but I have a freezer full of berries.

Blueberries. It's blueberry season, so I'm picking about every other day.

Peas. Their season is also done, of course, and all the peas are in the freezer awaiting cooler weather so I can can them up. These vines are about ready to pull out.

One of the strawberry beds.

Onions. Goodness I love onions.

Carrots.

Garlic. It's definitely ready to harvest.

Tomatoes. Lots of green fruit, and a few ripe ones.

I planted lots of dry beans this year -- Navy and pinto.

The orchard is doing very well.

Plums.

Apples

Peaches.

(No hazelnuts yet. They take a few years to mature.)

Okay, I guess I'm done with excuses, I really need to go harvest the garlic.

[Bonus feature: Here's an article on the therapeutic power of gardening.]

Picking peas

This time of year, the focus on the garden has shifted from weeding to harvesting. So far we've harvested strawberries, raspberries, and peas. Right now I'm picking blueberries, which I'll do for the next few weeks as they come ripe. Garlic is next, but it's not quite ready yet.

Last week it was peas. While not my favorite vegetable, it's one of my favorite garden plants. I dunno, I just think they're beautiful.

I only have two beds for peas (remember, not my favorite vegetable), but they invariably bear heavily.

I mean, look at that!

I picked this crop during a heat wave, so I started before dawn and continued as the sun peeked over the horizon. The rising sun illuminated how not every pod was ripe.

Some late bloomers even still had flowers.

In my opinion, there are worse places to be than picking peas on a summer morning.

This is what I got for the first picking.

A couple days later, I went back and filled the basket full.

After shelling, I ended up with nine pounds of peas, which I bagged up and put in the freezer. When the weather is cooler, I'll can them.

Thank God for a bounteous garden!

Spring garden work

With the quickening of spring comes quickening in the garden. Now the race is on -- not necessarily to get things planted (since we always risk a late frost) but to get the beds prepped for planting.

I was late in trimming the raspberry canes.

Usually I try to trim the canes before the plants leaf, but a few of the leaves had already budded out. Oh well, it's not too late.

Tools of the trade.

Things always look better when they're trimmed. I even made sure to gather the dead canes and chuck 'em in the burn pile this year (I have a bad habit of just leaving the canes underfoot).

Next step, the potato and pea beds. These are vegetables that can be planted early.

For the peas, it was a simple matter to tear off the fragile tangle of last year's pea plants, and weed the beds themselves.

While I worked, I kept hearing a muffled buzzing sound. This turned out to be some sort of waspish insect hollowing out a space in the gravel, presumably to lay her eggs.

I watched over and over as she crawled headfirst into the hole...

...then backed out carrying bits of dirt, which she discarded.

Any entomology types out there know the species?

I finished up weeding the pea beds...

...and got the peas planted. One task done.

Next task, the potato beds. They weren't in bad shape, and just needed to be weeded and raked.

The rake I use is this wicked-looking thingamabob I picked up at an antique store years ago. It's a wonderful tool.

The seed potatoes were more than ready to be planted.

I planted one potato at each hole on the drip irrigation hose.

Meanwhile the pear trees are getting ready to blossom.

Just yesterday I started weeding and prepping the corn beds. I won't plant the corn until about mid-May or later. This year, instead of popcorn, I'll plant Yukon Chief sweet corn.

It's perfect weeding weather -- not too hot, not too cold -- so I'll spend a few days working my way through these tires.

We planned to expand the garden and had about 25 tractor tires outside the fence, waiting for us to put them in the garden. Now, with our upcoming move, we won't have time to install them. We're in cleanup mode, not expansion mode.

Some new neighbors very much wanted the tires to create their own tire garden, so we borrowed a flatbed truck and trailer from another neighbor...

...Don loaded the tires...

...and the neighbor drove them to their new home. It took two loads to move them, but these neighbors will have the beginning infrastructure of a wonderful garden.

Meanwhile I plan to plant the garden with "generic" vegetables and fruits that might appeal to a buyer. In addition to the perennial plants already in place (herbs, horseradish, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries), and in addition to the garlic, peas, and potatoes I already have in place, I plan to plant tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupe, carrots, pinto beans, onions, and seed poppies. Am I missing anything critical? Is there anything else I should plant?