THAT Time of the Year!

Yep, the garden has started producing and today I did one of my favorite tasks of the season - I started the Kosher Dill pickle fermentation process.  Well, putting up the harvest can be time consuming and sometimes even hard work but I love fermented pickles so all the work is worth it!

This is a half-gallon jar of slices but I also put up a quart jar of spears.  After that I kinda ran out of steam and the right sized cucumbers!

It's also the time of year for squash, especially zucchini!  Since it's the first of the season, we're really enjoying it though - we haven't had time to get tired of it.  Last night we had
 good old yellow summer squash on the grill - yummy!

This is just a few of the cucumbers that were picked and I probably pickled at least half that many again.  And there's a few zucchini in front of the basket of cucumbers. 

And last but not least, here are a few of the coneflowers that have practically taken over the yard and the small pasture behind the barn.  We had planted wildflowers there as that's where we buried Bonnie, my horse and wanted to plant flowers for a memorial.  The coneflowers and rudbeckia have practically crowded out the other flowers and have spread all up around the house.  It's a cheery site to see all those sunny yellow flowers all around and they keep blooming almost all summer long.

It's a Hot, Hot, Hot Autumn

The Flaming Garden - Acrylic

Even though our main garden season is winding down, it seems the peppers are going stronger than ever.  The jalapeno, serrano and Cajun Belle pepper plants are loaded and fiery hot at this time of the year. 

The tomatoes have finished although we do have a volunteer plant that has some large Roma-type tomatoes on it.  They're still green and I hope the first frost will hold off until they ripen.  If not, they're far enough along to bring inside to finish.

But, we try to have something going as much of the year as possible and this year we planted rutabagas - a first for us.  We also have spinach, arugula, cilantro, parsley - all cool season crops for us.

However, the season has been anything but cool so far this fall.  Today was at least 90 degrees F as was yesterday.  The nights have cooled off a bit but nothing like they should be by now.  We're to get ours in a few days though as the cold front that brought snow to the western states is headed our way.  We shouldn't get any snow but probably some rain (which is needed) with a drop in temperature. 

How low will it go?  Actually not so bad - about 70 degrees F during the day and about 50 degrees at night.  That's perfect weather to my way of thinking!

Harvest Time

Pickled Okra and Jalapeno Peppers

It's that time of the year again when we have to do something with all the goodies from our garden.

Even though we no longer have a traditional working farm, we do like to have a garden and we certainly like to eat from the garden all year long.  In order to do that, we have to either freeze or can produce as soon as it's ready for harvest.

As I said, we love to have our own produce available during the winter months but preserving that produce sure eats into any art time!

Right now we have peppers of all kinds, tomatoes and a few okra plants producing like crazy and something needs to be done with it.  We enjoy sharing with friends & acquaintances who don't have a garden but even though we cut back on what we plant each spring, it seems we still have the same amount of harvest!

We canned 4 pint jars of jalapeno peppers today along with the okra but that's just a drop in the bucket as to what we'll use between now and next year's garden!  My husband loves hot peppers and could go through a jar in just a couple of days!  We plan to can quart jars of the various peppers tomorrow - oh, my burning hands!

We also put some fresh sweet corn in the freezer.  We don't plant corn because of the problems with deer and raccoons but a neighbor gave us some of his harvest today and it looks beautiful.  I know we'll enjoy it this winter too!

There are also tomatoes & squash in the freezer and I've made both fermented sour pickles and sweet bread 'n butter pickles and canned string beans.  The green beans, squash and cucumbers are nearly finished but we still have field peas left to harvest plus lots and lots of peppers.

Hopefully we can get everything in the freezer or the canner soon  and I can get back to painting.