26 July Garden Update

We are deep into harvest time with green beans, black eyed peas, tomatoes, beets, peppers, and we have just started harvesting corn. The corn is unbelievably good...we have been buying corn from a farmers market and we thought that was good but corn starts getting starchy and loses sweetness shortly after picking and I have to tell you, picking a few ears and then cooking them right away is a whole other experience.

Same thing with the green beans, we pick them and eat them the same day and they are shockingly good. Nothing like the tasteless stuff you buy in a store. We are also into our 5th week of over 90 temps and high humidity so the outside work is taxing but we are managing to stay up with it.

We have been freezing berries and vegetables, finish drying the blackeyed peas, and canned up some ketchup and cucumber relish..all of it tastes so good and its very satisfying doing things for yourself from produce grown with your own labor on your own land.

The flower heads on the sun flowers are now so laden with seed they are drooping over. We will save seed to replant next year and then soak the rest in salt water and dry them for eating.

Some of the cantelopes will be harvested this week.

And we have many many pumpkins..some are about 40 pounds or more.

We are not sure what we are going to do with them all but we are having fun with it.

We started harvesting the black eyed peas. We let them dry on the vine then we shell them and lay them out on cookie sheets to make sure they completely dry and then put them in glass jars. They are actually a bean and you cook them like any dried bean.

Our harvest in the morning on this day.

Our harvest in the evening on the same day.

We are getting this much of a harvest every day now from our first green bean row and we have three more rows of green beans just now getting ready for harvest.

Blanch for 3 minutes, drop in ice water to cool off and into the freezer.

Prepping tomatoes for ketchup and tomato sauce.

They were first par boiled to loosen the skin then they are skinned and cored...kind of tedious.

Reducing the ketchup.....its very good.

And some cucumber and zucchini relish ...have to do something with all the squash and cucumbers besides pickles. Our freezer is full of squash for those winter stews and soups.