Zucchini

It happens every year. First the lady bugs fight off the aphids and then just when the plants seem to be recovering, the leaves start growing out....for lack of a more descriptive term....skinnier. The plants look anemic.

And then of course there's this...

The funny thing is, despite all the problems they've had the plants are still slowly producing veggies. And with the total for these 12 plants at 40lbs. I think we're doing ok :)

Melons?

Thought I'd start with the saddest looking plants in the garden...

....and add one of the flowers, so it's not too depressing.

Not sure what happened to our melons/pumpkins this year. We got 4 cantelopes on 2 plants, but nothing else produced anything edible. The watermelons started out fine, but ended up splitting before they were ripe (the chickens loved them :) and the pumpkins have been on their deathbed from about the first week. I've been reading that they can be planted as late as Aug. for Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns so we are going to give it one more try. We'll keep you posted.

Another Progress Report

What a difference a month makes...

(above photo was taken July 25th, the one below June 14th)

I will try to post pics of the garden this week, tho much of it looks pretty droopy (because of the HEAT). The tomatoes and peppers are going strong (made a batch of salsa today...yum) but the zucchini and cucumbers are barely hanging on. The green bush beans have stopped producing and the soup beans are drying on the vines (which they are supposed to be doing).

Them are some tall tomatoes! (Steve is 6'2")

Corn

...sort of. This is actually a testimony to how deceiving a photograph can be. For one thing, the plate on which these ears are sitting is actually a....

...salad plate. Which makes these much, much smaller than they appear.

And if you turn them over, most are quite sparse in the kernel department....sigh.

Next year, we plant more or none at all. Corn needs to be planted in large blocks so it can properly pollinate and despite my shaking the stalks daily, our success was minimal.

The chickens, however, were quite content with our failures.

Cantelope

...And it was absolutely delicious!!!

Beans (and more Beans)

One of my goals this year was to learn how to use (and not be afraid of) the pressure canner.

I think I accomplished half of that this last weekend...these things still slightly scare the beegeebers out of me.

The green bean plants have been pretty prolific so far this summer. We are harvesting from 2 beds of snap green beans; the pole beans are not producing yet and the other 3 beds of beans will be used as dried beans for winter soups.

Right out of the garden...

...washed and ready to go into the jars...

I used the cold pack method because beans are fairly tender

and will get soft quick enough once the cooking starts.

Added 1/2 teas. kosher salt and filled jars with boiling water.

Into the monster they go.

I love the fact that you can stack the pint jars

to get more into the pot; it actually holds 20 total.

Holding steady at 10 pounds of pressure.

Ta Da!.......11 pints of 'to be eaten this winter' green beans.

I've also frozen about 10 pounds of beans

but the freezer is filling up fast.......and it's a BIG freezer.

(more than one person has commented that we could fit a body in there....who are these people?)