Summer Blooms

 Zinnias

 Cosmos

Not sure what these are, but thought they were pretty.  We picked them from our back pasture this past weekend.

Random Food Photos

August is busy here as we have started back to school, plus we are canning and preserving all we can from the garden.  We have been making pickles and pickled onions (as we have a TON of onions this year).  Today we are working on pickle relish.  Tomorrow it will be peach preserves and frozen peach slices for pies and smoothies!   

 Here is a picture of Bread and Butter Pickles (they look yellow because the cucs are a yellow variety).  Also, red onions in red wine vinegar. 

 Rosemary harvested from the garden.  I washed it, made sure it was dry, then put it in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer.  This tastes more like fresh than dried.

 Another batch of green beans are starting to produce.  Love succession planting! 

 A cantalope from the garden.  This is the biggest we have been able to grow, and it came out of the Square Foot Garden.  It was soooo good.  Way better than anything from the store!

A view of the inside.  I'm going to try saving the seeds from it this year to plant next spring.  Should be interesting...I'll keep you posted.

Pictures From The Square Foot Garden

I took these a week or so ago, and remembered that I hadn't posted them yet.  The SFG beds are really growing well. 

 2 very healthy zucchini plants and some Royal Burgandy beans (trying not to get crowded out)!

 Pumpkin plants...these got planted late in the season, and we do have some small pumpkins on the vines...hoping to get a harvest out of them, but we'll have to wait and see.

 Lovely little Delicata squash.  We also have some acorn squash in this bed.

 Cantalopes...these are a bit bigger now and getting their netted skin.  I think it won't be too much longer and these will be ready.  Yay!

And finally, little watermelons.  I am really hoping these grow bigger and are ready before any frost...we love watermelon!

I continue to be pleased with our square foot garden.  We added a few more beds and ripped out some flowers and spent plants to make room for fall crops.  I planted lettuces, micro greens, spinach, beets, more green beans, and snow peas. Oh, and more cilantro because I can't seem to go enough of it...it is so good fresh.  I plan on transplanting my perennial herbs to the square foot garden, and maybe my strawberry plants as well.  Always work to do in the garden...we just need more time to get it all done!

Patriotic Potatoes

We planted organic seed potatoes this year from Wood Prairie Farms.  The varieties were All-Blue, Cranberry Red, and King Harry.  They taste great, although yields were not as high as in past years.  I think the weather may have had something to do with it, but we also tried a new planting method and wonder if that had anything to do with it.  We laid the seed potatoes on the ground and covered them with straw.  I love the concept because there isn't as much digging to harvest, but I think we should have layered the straw a lot deeper.  I am also wondering if they needed more fertilizer, as potatoes can be pretty heavy feeders.  We added a scoop of compost when planting, but I think they needed more.  Overall, we were happy with the quality and would order from them again.  An added bonus:  they are so pretty! 

Tomatoes and Corn!

The garden is cranking out tomatoes and corn right now, and we have been working on preserving all that we can. 

 Fabulous, fresh tomatoes out of the garden, waiting to be made into salsa.

 Salsa out of the canner...it turned out spicy this time, with some of our jalapenos added.  We like it though.

 Also, canning plain tomatoes for chili and stew this winter.  The orange and red tomatoes look so pretty together in the jars.

 We have been blanching corn on the cob.

 Let it cool on cookie sheets or clean kitchen towels.

Cut off the cob and put into quart freezer bags.  I have done 42 bags and am offically done with corn!  It was a lot of work, but I am happy to know that we don't have to buy corn for the rest of the year!  This should be enough to last til next summer's harvest.