Firsts...and lasts?

The first ripe tomatoes are starting to show up.  I had used a few almost ripe Romas in the Fruit Ketchup that I made last week, but this is the first gleaming red that I enjoyed in all its fresh naked glory.  I should have some ripe slicers by the middle/end of the week.  That's also my first ripe Tigger melon.  They fall right off the vine when they are ready, which is the perfect obvious alert to a clueless first time grower.  Lastly, that could be the last of the healthy cukes.  There are stilll a few coming in, but they all have serious complexion issues...  

The Roma and the cuke ended up here.  Well, I suppose they ended up in my belly.  Well, actually they.....nevermind.  I was aching for one of these salads and hoped the cukes would last til the first tomato came along.  Add some Italian dressing and blue cheese crumbles...perfect!

I'd also been craving a Caprese.  Such was the fate of the second ripe Roma.  Along with fresh mozzarella, garlic, basil, S & P and a drizzle of olive oil...I'll be eating a trunk load of these in the coming days.  Last year, two of the ingredients - the tomato and basil were our own.  This year, we've stepped up to three - adding in our own garlic.  Sounds like progress to me.  Maybe next year we'll shoot for our own fresh mozz.

This is the first time that the apple tree has been so full of apples.  I'll give them another couple weeks before I start on with the applesauce and such.  First time I've had that many sunflowers.   First time I've grown such an abundance of cukes (the dying vines are on the trellises in front of the sunflowers).  And first time I've grown melons - the fuzzy green patch in front of the cukes.

This was just moments after Takoda devoured his first cantaloupe.  Some were getting a bit over-ripe and the fragrance must have gotten to him.  He pulled it right off the vine and started munching.  

I'd be remiss if I didn't add the shot from Kaya's first day of the second grade!  Those smiles are worth more than all the ripe fruits and veggies a fella can grow.

Cukes, Peaches, and a Tooth

I do believe I've seen the last of this for the summer:

The cuke vines are dying back and while I'll still be able to harvest a few more before all is said and done, the huge harvests are over for the year.  It was a great cuke year!  It allowed me to finely hone my pickle recipes. I started out with refrigerator pickles, then some bread and butters, then canned some vinegar dill pickles and more bread and butters, then fermented a whole lot of deli dills.  I'm now in love with the fermented deli dills.  Real nice combo of salty and sour and full of probiotic greatness.  It also just happens to be the easiest of the preservation techniques.  

Totals for the year:

6 quarts refrigerator Dills

2 quarts refrigerator Bread and Butter

7 quarts canned Dills

5 pints canned Bread and Butter

11 quarts of fermented Deli Dills

In addition to the cukes, I've also pickled (so far):

2 quarts fermented Dilly beans

2 quarts fermented pepperoncini

3 pints canned pepperoncini

Peaches are in!  We've been crazy busy processing (and eating) them.  Kaya is a fanatic and I watched her eat no less than 4 peaches back to back, and then ask for another.  For some reason I felt the need to cut her off! 

I could have swore that I bought two 18 lb cases last year, which didn't quite get us through the winter.  So this year I bought three 18 lb cases.  Once I made the first batch of jam and barely put a dent in the top layer of the first case, I realized that I was quite mistaken and had only purchased 1 box last year.  I was a bit worried about getting through them all before they started to turn, but we're down to only half a case left.  

They had a great time helping me peel.  In fact, they did all the peeling, while I halved and pitted.  Then they helped me measure out the water and sugar for the syrup.  They wanted to keep helping with the rest of the process, but there was just too much boiling water and boiling syrup and simmering lids and hot jars involved to let them partake in that just yet.  This day, we canned 14 quarts of peaches in syrup.  

Even Kassie couldn't resist and tried a bite of peach!  She said she liked it and acted like she liked it, but only had the one bite.  It's a start!

Peach totals for the year:

14 quarts peaches in syrup

9 half pints Summer Fruit jam (a combo of peaches and apples...with apples from our very own apple tree!)

10 half pints peach jam

4 pints Fruit Ketchup (made with peaches, apples, some leftover Romas I had frozen from last years harvest and a few fresh Romas that are just starting to come in)

20-30 fresh peaches, eaten in 3 days by Kaya

The other big happening this week...Kaya finally lost her first tooth!  Only took me 3 or 4 good yanks to get it out.  She was so excited!  The tooth fairy came as expected and didn't wake her up, so all were happy.

Random, parting sunflower shot.

Garden Update - August 7, 2014

3 Sisters bed - it's full.

Ears of corn are filling out nicely

This use to be a 5 foot wide row of empty space

We have at least 2 Jack O' Lanterns on vine

Butternut squash just getting going

Buen Gusto de Horno squash.  I wanted at least one of the really ugly, bumpy looking ones.

Long pie pumpkin living up to it's name....this thing is about 20" long already.

It's a madhouse in there!  Been harvesting Pole beans as well.

Filius Blue peppers - disregarding their name.

The 'ol rubber snake in the apple tree trick seems to be working well so far to keep the squirrels at bay.  Some of them are plumping right up and are even edible now - the apples, not the squirrels.  Well, for me at least....still a bit tart for Kaya's taste.

Thought the Kale and Collards had just about run their course, I had harvested most of the leaves.  But just a few weeks later, we're ready for another round of harvest.  Been snacking on the carrots in the back, they are slowly coming along.  I just replanted the front of this bed with beets, parsnip, spinach and more carrots for a late fall harvest.

Nothing like last year, but I should get a decent tomato haul.  Some of them are getting pretty loaded.  No red yet, but still another 2 months of growing season around these parts.

Sunflowers in the back are pushing above 8' but have yet to flower.  Trellised cukes are still producing in mass quantities.  Melons in the front are taking over this part of the yard.

Girls helped me pick cukes last weekend in the blazing sun.  I have already put up 15 quarts of dill and bread n' butter's.  This batch filled the 2 gallon crock and will be fermented into deli dills. 

One of the Texas Golden watermelon.

Ali Baba Watermelon - just a tad bigger than a football right now.

Remainder of the onions.  Most had fallen over and then I knocked down the rest to finish their in-ground cure.  Pulled them a couple weeks after that.  They are currently laying in the sun to finish their outdoor cure.  I'm going to use this space for the broccoli and brussels sprouts seedlings that I've been hardening off.

Couple of Minnesota Midget melons.  I pulled one the other day to see if it was ready.  Nice orange flesh on the inside, but it was still lacking the sweetness.  I'll try again in a week or so.  There must be 30+ of them in the patch!

The "other" melon patch.

Tigger melon

Takoda can't get enough of the apples.  If there are none on the ground he'll even steal one right off a low hanging branch.  There is however an unwelcome side effect - they give him stinky toots.  Oh well, blaming it on the dog is nothing new around here...