Farm Fresh: Swimming in Tomatoes

 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.

Family Fun: Big sister A's popsicle birthday party

Big sister A has been waiting for her best friend E's visit so that she could be there for her birthday party... and summer is a better time of year for it. 

 We made a popsicle pinata. It was very sturdy.

 

 

 We bought and put up a flexible sided kiddie pool for the occasion, but the sides did not want to stay up properly - hence all the buckets around the outside edge.

 We had all kinds of "popsicles" for the party treats: freeze pops, brownie pops, and watermelon pops.

 One of the games was target practice with paint filled water guns. The kids loved it.

 

Farm Fresh: Progress update for July

The Goosie goosies are so friendly. They are coming up to check out the camera, knowing that I usually have treats for them.

Afflac the Muscovy mama sat on that second batch of eggs, but none hatched. I am not sure why. Now I am slowly kicking her and baby duck out of the chicken coop.

 This little duck family is very cute -- all hanging out together.

 Our three home hatched chicks have also been roaming free this week.

 The rainbow ranger ladies are all laying eggs now. We have been eating a lot of double yokers (since that is what often happens when hens begin laying).

The turkeys are also very friendly and tend to welcome people who come up the driveway. They have some bad habits as well. Like perching on the bed of hubby's truck. 

 And eating all around the edge of my garden - or poking their heads in to attack very tasty melons.

 The guineas like to hang out near the turkeys.  I think that was a lucky combination. The guineas and turkeys both like to eat bugs. And the turkeys deter hawks from attacking the small guineas.

 The geese also make trouble at times - eating the herbs in my herb garden like a salad.

Their is not much to say about the rabbits right now. The newest kits are growing up. I am planning to breed all 4 does in October so that we will have about 20 kits available for sale at Christmas time. Or I could just keep them. I cannot have too much rabbit manure for the garden.

Family Fun: Water Day!

The church Primary had their annual Water Day this past Saturday. Tons of slippery fun on the super slide!

 There was a water bounce house for the under 5 crowd.

 They had a massive water balloon fight in which the kids mostly clobbered the dads.

 And some family relay races - trying to fill their bucket first with a holey tube of water.

Farm Fresh: It's a jungle out there

I love this time of year in the garden. It's a jungle of goodies. 

Tomatoes, peppers, leeks, onions, carrots, and beets are all giving us lots to eat.  Melons, beans, and squash are growing like crazy. Crossing my fingers for a good harvest.

I am so glad that I planted all those zinnias this year. They are a beautiful addition all around my gardens, especially this row in the front yard. 

Only bad thing is -- the brassicas are done. Anything I have not harvested the bugs are killing. Poor kale. The dill I planted with it did not deter as many pests as I had hoped.