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Good Times in the Garden

We are extremely happy with how the garden is doing. Plants are producing vegetables, flowers are blooming and we have a big grin on our face.  Our peas are producing a lot and so are the zucchini plants.  Little farmer boy is in love with the peas and picks at least two every time we go to the garden to nibble on. 

One of the many sunflowers in the garden, I'm in love with them.

The zucchini row growing steady.

Our goal this summer is to can more of our fortunes from our garden along with some delicious pickens from local farms.  Last summer we canned some peach jam and we wanted to try strawberry jam this year.  We found a recipe from Certo and picked up some strawberries and had a day of canning jam.  Luckily we did it on a day that wasn't in the 90s, cause boy was our kitchen hot.  There were a few incidents of burning our   finger tips but nothing too serious. Our other challenge was our two year old wanting our attention and needing a nap.  Doing any task with a toddler takes twice as long and sometimes even more.  We managed to get it done and now have some tasty strawberry jam to enjoy and maybe give some away. After we had pulled the jars from the pot and let them sit to cool we sat at our kitchen table and listened for them to "pop" which is the sound of success. 


Local good looking strawberries.

Strawberries, sugar and pectin combining and smelling spectacular.

Our finished goodness lined up.

I'm going to search for a zucchini relish recipe I can can because after eating zucchini twice my dear husband is already tired of it.  I'll also have to devote some time to Pinterest to find some new ways of cooking it, any excuse to be on Pinterest I'll use.  If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. Our time has just been spent checking and maintaining the garden...pulling weeds, pinching suckers off tomato plants, and making sure watering system is still working.  We're also still cleaning up those trees we trimmed, I think it's going to be a summer long project.  

 While looking through the free section of Craigslist the other day I came across something useful, some free homemade wooden tomato cages.  It was a pretty good stack of them too, so even better.  I replied to the ad and waited around all evening checking my email like a crazy person and no response.  Finally when I was in bed doing one last check of my emails I saw that I had gotten a response.  They were still available and I could pick them up the next day, I felt like I had won a contest. My mother in law was the lucky one who got to help me pick up the spider web infested cages.  Well that's about it for now, until the next time I get a free moment.

They are pretty good for FREE.


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