GARDEN/CANNING!

GARDEN UPDATE:

I have been harvesting tons of peppers.
I usually freeze most of them. This year I have been making several meals with them. One of our favorites is stuffed peppers.


This is another batch we brought in.


Some more peppers and banana peppers.
These plants have seriously been producing.


Check out them green beans.


Looks like after the drought and all the rain they decided to grow again. Surprised us!!


This bean plant was almost dead looking after the japanese beetles got a hold of it.
It amazes me that it grew back. This plant looks great.


A beautiful evening out doing chores.

A neighbor gifted us some cucumbers.
You know what I am going to do with these!

Also a huge batch of cilantro.
This is going in the dehydrator.

I am making bread and butter pickles with them. They are bigger in size but it taste the same. Since our cucumbers didn't turn out this year this in helping to restock our pantry.

It makes the whole house smell like a pickle.
You either love it or hate it. To me, it's all about stocking the pantry with a summer harvest. So we love it around here.

Still more to can. Got the first batch done. Second batch I will do tomorrow. I did split this batch with my oldest daughter.

They look so delicious!
I can't wait to serve them with sloppy joes.
Yum!

Watermelon
After having a hard drought this summer, I didn't think these would grow. We stopped watering everything because of the drought.
Everything we watered seemed to evaporate before it hit the ground.

Another watermelon.

Sweet melon 

Green beans and our dry beans.

Another harvest to add to our dry beans:
Jacobs cattle beans
Black-eyed Peas
Black beans

Added more chili peppers in the dehydrator.

The green beans keep coming.
More peppers and jalapenos.

Kaitlin harvesting the more black-eye peas.

Not sure our count on beans for the freezer.

Today we canned jalapenos.

And sorento hot peppers.

Just saying I don't do spicy especially jalapenos.
I grow them for Tim and Kaitlin. They like the spice.
I chose not to wear gloves while slicing them. One because I forgot. Two because I already started slicing them. I made two mistakes doing this. Forgetting and not stopping and putting the gloves on.
 I got them canned! A huge batch and noticed my hands were burning. I had burned four of my fingers. Don't forget to wear gloves when messing with spicy/hot peppers. Kaitlin sliced up the sorento peppers and touched her face. We learned, take the time to do this and wear the gloves. We ended up putting on some burn medicine.

Just some beautiful wild flowers.

Soon will be gone for winter will take over.

The girls and I took time out to go to our town's, Movies in the Park.
We watched The Greatest Showman!!!!!
What fun to be with my 2 beautiful daughters. I am a lucky mom!!!

Next day, we canned some banana peppers. 

Some days I feel we should have 2 kitchens.
One to cook in and the other for just canning. Maybe some day but for now we have one kitchen and all meals must be while we are canning too. 

We weren't pleased with our corn harvest this year. The drought really did a number on our corn this year. But we did manage to get the crystal-glass popcorn. It's a small batch but we did get some. 

The girls and I are harvesting some more goodies and laying mulch where it needs it. Thank you girls for your wonderful help.

Looks like we are gonna be harvesting peppers for awhile. 
There producing really good this year.

Another basket full of green beans and a few tomatoes.
Tomatoes this year with the drought just didn't do well. Hopefully next year will be a better year for the corn and tomatoes.