Week 22 - August 28/29 - Flower Beds

My flower beds are looking sad with autumn coming.  And with a bit of neglect, they are in desperate need of some TLC, lots of grass and weeds to pull and lots of things to be trimmed before fall really comes.  But there seriously just aren't enough hours in the day or even in the week these days.  And considering that I am away on vacation for the rest of the week, I don't expect any of it will get done before the next update.  But you never know, maybe the garden cleaning fairy will stop by while I am away and have them in tip top shape when I came home!

Back Garden

Side Garden

Side Garden

Malva Zebrina

Purple leafed sedum

Purple leafed sedum

Busy bumble on the sedum

Sedum

Hen and chick with lots of little babies

Week 22 - August 28/29 Vegetable Garden

I can tell that is coming to the end of garden season with one look at my garden.  The potato plants and onions have died back and are just waiting to be dug.  The lettuce is going to seed.  The cucumbers are turning yellow.  It is all somewhat depressing.

I spent some time in the garden today, pulling some weeds and grass that were starting to take over the world that is my garden.  I picked a couple of baskets of cucumbers and started a batch of icicle pickles and I am hoping that after my holidays this week, I'll have enough ripe tomatoes for a batch of salsa.  I know that I will have enough beets to do another couple batches of pickled beets in the coming weeks.

My sad looking veggie garden . . .

Potatoes . . . dead and ready to be dug . . .

Lettuce is going to seed . . . at least the bunnies will still eat it!

Yellow cucumbers . . . too much heat and sun the last few days, we need some rain!  But they still work for pickles.

Parsley is still looking GREAT!  Any suggestions on what I can do with A LOT of parsley?

Mystery pepper . . . I am sure they were all supposed to be regular bell peppers . . .

Monster zucchini . . . 5 pounds each!  Made 9 bags (3cups each) of grated zucchini for the freezer!

Monster zucchini!

Lots of cucumbers for pickles!

24 cups of cut up cucumbers for icicle pickles.

Week 21 - August 21/22

I really don't have much to report this week, nor do I really have any photos.  I didn't get to do anything in the flower beds or gardens this weekend because it was rainy and miserable.  

I did use some fresh basil in spaghetti sauce this week and it was super yummy!  Amazing the difference it makes when it is fresh!

Of course, today, I did pickled beets.  There are lots more cucumbers almost ready to be used.  Not sure what I am going to do with them, I was thinking about Icicle Pickles, but they take two weeks and if I start them now, they won't be finished by the time we leave for a little holiday.  So, maybe when we come back, if there are still cucumbers.  I will probably have to do something with some of them in the meantime.  Maybe some relish.

Flower beds are pretty much in fall mode.  I really need to do some dead heading and I need to find some fall flowers to plant because the gardens are looking kind of blah.

Five pound zucchini!  I will be grating this one up and freezing it for zucchini bread!

Pickled Beets

I was at it again today!  This time, making pickled beets.  Again, I searched the internet and created my own recipe based on bits and pieces of the recipes that I found!

Beets . . . fresh from the garden, clean and ready to cook . . . 

Boiling . . . 

Cooked, cooling and waiting to be peeled . . . 

Peeled . . . 

Sliced . . . 

Pickling spices . . . this is an infant Nibbler* and is so much easier to use for spices that need to be removed than fumbling with cheese cloth and sting!  I found this tip on the internet, but can't find it again to give credit, but it works really well!

Beet slices in brine.

Finished product . . . 5 pints of pickled beets.

Pickled Beets

4 quarts of beets

1 1/2 cups vinegar

3 cups water

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 tbsp mixed pickling spices

Clean and boil beets.

Let cool.

Peel and slice/cut as desired.  Place in large saucepan.

Mix vinegar, water and sugar, pour over beets.

Put pickling spices in cheese cloth pouch or infant Nibbler so that they can be removed.

Boil for 10 minutes.

Pack in hot jars.

Can for 15 minutes in boiling water.

Bread And Butter Pickles

Today's foray into domesticity (if that is even a word, but I like the way it sounds, so I'm going to say that it is!) was Bread and Butter Pickles.  Again, I have help Mom and probably grandma make these many time, years ago, but this was the first time I've attempted it on my own.  I searched the internet for a recipe and found many.  Most of which had the basics that I remembered and some had things in them that I knew were never in the ones Mom made.  So, I pulled together the basics from a few recipes and came up with one of my own.  (See end of post for recipe.)

Sliced cucumber and onion sitting for 3 hours with salt and ice.

Seasonings used, with sugar and vinegar to create the brine.

Bread and Butter Pickle Brine.

Cucumber and onion cooking in brine.

Finished product . . . 4 quarts of Bread and Butter Pickles.

Bread and Butter Pickles

4 quarts cucumbers

6 medium onions 

2 peppers (optional)

1/3 cup pickling salt

ice

Slice and layer in container with salt and ice in each layer.

Let sit for 3 hours.

4 cups sugar

3 cups vinegar

1 1/2 tsp tumeric

1 1/2 tsp celery seed

2 tbsp mustard seed

Mix together in a large pot and heat to boiling.

Drain cucumbers and remove ice but DO NOT rinse.

Add to brine and bring to boil.

Cook for 5 minutes.

Ladle into hot jars.  Put on lids.

Process in boiling water for 15 minutes.

Week 19 - August 7/8 & Week 20 - August 14/15 - Flowers

Raindrops on my Crimson Maple . . . just cause I like pics of raindrops on pretty things!

Raindrop on a daylily.

White Phlox

Despite the fact that I haven't planted snap dragons in my flower beds in about three years, every year, I still have a couple pop up that have seeded themselves down.

Some violas that just popped up recently.

One lonely blossom on this poor little clematis.  Not sure why it is having such a hard time growing this year, but it is pretty sad looking.  Hope that it survives the winter!

Rubekia

Rubekia

This is the galardia that my mom gave me for my birthday . . . it has gotten HUGE!  And is much taller than the tag suggested it would be!  It really needs to find a better spot to live before next year . . . and hopefully before it get snagged by the lawn tractor!

Week 19 - August 7/8 & Week 20 - August 14/15 - Flower Garden

Again, not a whole lot to say.  So many flowers are finished for the year, which makes me kind of sad.  And I really have to get into the gardens and do some deadheading, but I'm not sure when I'll find time for that!  

Back Garden

Side Garden

Side Garden

Week 19 - August 7/8 & Week 20 - August 14/15 - Vegetable Garden

Not too much to say this week . . . we were camping last weekend, which is why there was no update . . . I need to into the garden with a hoe to rid of some weeds that are coming up.

Everything is doing well.  Cucumbers and zucchini are doing better than they have in years.  There are more beets ready to get eaten as soon as I take the notion!  Lettuce is awesome!  Parley and basil are ready to use.  Bunnies are eating lots of swiss chard and kale.  Tomatoes and peppers are slow this year, but the tomatoes and peppers that my sister in law started for me were pretty tiny when I planted them.  The tomatoes that I bought were bigger and most are a little more advanced.

Vegetable garden . . . 

Tomatoes . . . almost ready!

Dill

Dill Pickles

So, after a few years of very poor cucumber growth in my garden, I have finally found success.  Not sure if it is the manure that I put on the garden, the better quality seeds from Vesey's or that I put them in a different part of the garden, but do I ever have cucumbers this year!

I picked these earlier this week.  And they were just the ones that we already HUGE and turning yellow.  I was a little worried that they were going to be bitter, but they were very yummy!

I don't really know what's up with my pickle cucumbers, but they go from way too small to use (same diameter as the stems) to way too big for pickles almost overnight!  And before this week, there was only ever one ready at a time.  I was planning on waiting for enough of them to be ready to make dill pickles, but when I saw how many over grown "little" cucumbers that I had, I knew I had to do something!  So, after some internet searching for pickle recipes and looking in the cupboards to see what was there, I was left with little choice but to cut the pickles and make dills or go to the grocery store of other supplies.  And I didn't want to go to the store!

So, it was pickle making time!  First time in my life that I have ever made pickles by myself!  When I lived at home, I helped mom and grandma make pickles many times, but this is my first sole attempt!

My HUGE pickling cucumbers!

8 pounds of cut up cucumbers.

Soaking my soon to be pickles in ice water.

Cucumbers, garlic and dill in jars . . . 

. . . waiting for brine to be added.

Everything in the jars and ready to go into the canner.

Finished product . . . are they pickles yet?  Not yet, they need to sit for 1-2 months before we can try them.  I'll let you know then how they turned out!

Here is the recipe that I used, minus the hot peppers.  I will probably try another batch with hot peppers if my cucumbers keep growing like they have been!

  http://www.pickles-4u.com/Dill-Pickle-Recipe.php