September 2016

September 1, 2016  
Mint, chard, beans, potatoes, and raspberry jelly

Ana Hlavatovich volunteers tending the overgrown mint garden, as the pumpkin and squash vines grow into it.

The chard is beautiful

The yellow beans have produced for weeks.

Late planted potatoes growing in foreground.  In the background are the potatoes planted in spring and not harvested yet.

So many raspberries....Mashing them for jelly.

Straining the crushed raspberries through the jelly bag.

7 jars of raspberry jelly right out of the canner.

September 2, 2016: Apples, bindweed*#!, and nasturtiums

 The apples are few but delicious!

 We thought we had the bindweed all out of the upper fruit bed, ready for strawberry planting.  But I just weeded half the bed again.   The photo shows all the weeds in the other half of the bed.

Nasturtiums are having a very happy fall!

September 7 and 10: Pole Beans!

September 18 and 23:  Good Bugs and Bad!

 Cabbage moths attack the cabbage!

A praying mantis hangs out on the pineapple sage!

August 11, 2016 Campers' Harvest

Campers harvest beans, turnips, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini

Aug 8: raspberry patch, broccoli, andzucchoni

Little secondary heads of broccoli

Campers loving the raspberries!

Zucchini stems in trouble!  But the zucchini keep coming!

August 7: pumpkins, beans, potatoes

Lemon Verbena and Stevia--growing for Halloween Tea!

Dug about half of the potatoes!

Dug all the grass and bindweed out of the upper fruit patch around the apple and cherry trees.   Grass and  weeds were all tangled through the landscape fabric.  Really hard work to remove it all.    Prepping the ground for  a new strawberry patch.  

Black turtle beans on right.  Pole beans starting to grow up trellis.  Bush beans on left, with chard and corn in background.

Pumpkins and winter squash.  Vines growing fast and long!

Cucumbers and more cucumbers!

July 31: abundant summer growth and blossom end rot'

Yuck! Blossom end rot on some tomatoes!

Potatoes and Tomatoes

Overgrown mint bed.   Need to cut back!
Lush cucumber vines making lots of fruit
Just a few apples this year
Butternut Squash!
Pumpkins!

July 25: Better frozen veggies.

Before removing air

After removing air

Learned a new trick today for removing more of the air from bags of blanched veggies before freezing.  Just insert a straw into the bag before finishing sealing and suck the air out.   Nifty!  Should help them stay fresher!

July 25: Pickles!

Campers helped pick cucumbers this morning and then I helped them make a batch of pickles for the camps next meal.  But there were so many cucumbers ripe.  Marge Krueger took some home to make pickles and so did Bill and also me. Plus there were a bunch to take over to the lodge kitchen.  Here's the pickles- to-be cooking on my stove and the finished jars of pickles after being in the canner.