Harvesting & Canning

The weather seems to be the garden's best friend this year. We are having a hard time keeping up with the harvest. I have a quart size bag of each one of the herbs dried & processed already. The beets came up huge, we are eating them as fast as we can pull them along with the lettuce & peas. Radishes & Strawberries are finished but they were tasty. I think we have had Zucchini & summer squash every night for the past 2 weeks. We have some Patty pans coming and 2 very huge Blue Hubbards. The Zinnias have been gorgeous. I grew Tithonias for the first time this year and they are beautiful. I'll get a picture up next time.

We have already made Blueberry Jam, some from blueberries that came from our friend Janet(we need more this year 8-) ) and some from our bushes. Tam is hoping to make a pie with the rest of them. Then we made Zucchini relish & then in case that was not enough we went raspberry picking @ Doles today and Tam made some raspberry jam. I do the beginning dishes, help can and then do the ending dishes so I do help somewhere in the process.

The Japanese beetle & cucumber beetle have been a plenty this year but my biggest problem has been earwigs. I tried the rolled up paper and the paper towel roll. They didn't work, but I found a recipe that works awesome.

Take a small can (cat food or Tuna can) put in the following and then set it in the garden, preferably under some shadowy, moist area, such as under the hosta or the broccoli leafs.

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon Soy Sauce

1 teaspoon Molasses

It truly works, set it out and the next morning check the can and you will see a ton of earwigs in the can dead. Very gross but satisfying knowing they are no longer eating my plants down to a stub.

I still don't have my poles set up for the hammock, but Tam did get some pea gravel to put in the holes, hopeful this will hold the buckets in the ground. If not I will cement the buggers in.

I cleaned out the composter and the compost bin. I actually got 5 wheelbarrows full of the black gold. Very nice to see all that. Making a good pile behind the garage for next years garden. I'm actually out of compost raw material now, but it wont take long to replenish from the garden.