This has been a lovely summer for gardening -- not too hot and raining regularly at almost perfectly spaced intervals. I harvested all the last onions and carrots 2 weeks ago.
It's my first year successfully growing carrots. I think interplanting them with the onions really worked well. We harvested about 20 lbs of carrots from the 4 rows I planted.
I also harvested all the remaining leeks and beets. I should have harvested the beets earlier. The first set were much more tender. But I have just been so busy with the tomatoes! We are averaging one basket full every day.
What are you doing with all those tomatoes? you might wonder...
Canning! Often into the wee hours of the morning...NOT recommended, but soon they will (probably?) stop producing as much and then harvest will be over. I am trying to keep up with the flood.
Last year I canned 45 jars of salsa. We have 10 leftover... so I canned 36 more jars of "Fiesta Salsa" and "Zesty Salsa" from the Ball Canning book. Then since I have a good crop of tomatillos this year, I also made 10 pint jars of my favorite "Tomatillo Salsa" (also from the class Ball Canning book-- which I like better than all my specialty canning books btw. The
Ball Canning recipes always turn out well.)
I am trying a couple of different tomato sauce canning recipes now. The one I think I will like the best is Basil Garlic Sauce. I am also searching for other "quick meal in a jar" type ideas. I have two different pickled vegetable recipes that I think I might be able to just mix with olive oil, some feta cheese, and olives -- to toss with pasta for pasta salad. Maybe for Christmas I will get a pressure canner and start making some real meals in jars next year.
I canned peaches too, but hubby is eating about one jar a day, so those won't last long. I made a new batch of pickled beets with the ones I harvested from the garden.
The next tidal wave that I foresee is winter squash. I planted a TON. And they are going a little crazy growing away from the places I planted them, over the fence and through the fence.
I am not planning to feed most of this to my family. I am going to only feed the poultry minimal grain this winter, but lots of squash, mangel beets, and sunflower seeds that we grew ourselves. Buying mixes at the feed store is pretty pricey and I want to be more self sufficient.
Yum! Garden looks so good Amy! If your interested, I have another good canning salsa recipe that is so delicious. Kids here liked it better than ball book zesty salsa (maybe because it is less spicy haha!) Also, what are you doing to preserve your leeks? It's my first year growing them, I thought they would keep in the garden until winter but they are way over ready.
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