Canning Tomatoes Today - July 31, 2021

 

It has been so stinkin' hot this week!   This morning the weather-person said that it'll be 97 degrees before the day is over.

I went to the garden early to pick tomatoes.  Sweat started pouring out of my hair the minute I stepped out the door.  

Critters had munched a bunch of the nicest tomatoes.  I picked everything that seemed to be thinking about turning red.  The sills on the back porch are lined up with half-ripe tomatoes, and the kitchen sink is full of mostly-ripe ones.  There's a pot of water heating on the stove to scald them.  

The purple hull peas needed picking, too.  As I was picking them, Nanny came outside with a picking sack and a knife, wanting to know if I needed her to pick something.  I was about finished with the peas by then.  I said, "No, I got it."  But she kept asking. 

"Do you want me to pick the green beans?"  

"Not today; it's too hot."

"Do you want me to pick the cucumbers?"

"Not today; we got them a few days ago."

"Do you want me to cut the okra?"

I had already spot-checked the okra, and there were only a few pods ready.  I said, "Yeah, go ahead and cut the okra," and joined her in the okra rows.

I hope it cools off this week, as predicted.  The garden needs weeding, and I want to pull up the pea vines and plant a new crop.

Hot, hot, HOT - July 27, 2021

 We've been under a heat advisory for the past few days.  The temps have been around 93 degrees, but the weatherman says it "feels like" more than 100.  I know one thing: it's humid.  We've had pop-up rain showers every day - they don't last long or spread wide, but they sure load the air with moisture.

Until tonight, I hadn't been to the garden for two days, and when I was last there, I only picked the tomatoes.  After dinner, I tricked The Husband into going to the garden "just to look," and we ended up picking everything out there:  tomatoes (another 5-gallon bucket full), peppers, cucumbers, green beans, squash, and purple hull peas.  Probably should've checked the okra, but it was getting dark.  We gave it all to Nanny, except for the cucumbers and peppers, which we're giving to co-workers tomorrow.  

The Husband brought home another load of cardboard boxes, enough to carpet almost a whole row.  

There'll probably be another 5-gallon bucket full of tomatoes in a couple of days.  I've canned 10 quarts, so far.  This next load ought to be enough.

Canning tomatoes - July 26, 2021

 

The tomatoes are starting to come in, big-time.

This year, I grew 4 varieties:  (1) Big-better-beefy-boy something-or-other (yeah, I can't remember what I planted), (2) Early Girl, (3) San Marzano, and (4) Defiant.  

My objective was to grow both determinate and indeterminate tomatoes.  Determinate tomatoes produce their crop all at once and then virtually poop out, whereas indeterminate tomatoes produce fruit all season long.  I wanted to have determinate tomatoes for canning purposes, hoping to have a large amount of tomatoes ready all at once so that I could can as many jars of tomatoes as I wanted and then put the equipment away, rather than dragging the canning out in small batches all season.  I also wanted some indeterminate tomatoes for cooking and eating all summer long.

Early Girl and San Marzano tomatoes are labeled as "indeterminate."  I'm not sure about the beefy boys.  I thought the San Marzano tomatoes would be good for canning, as they are said to be "meaty and flavorful."  To be 100% honest, I'm not so sure I like the San Marzanos.  For one thing, the plants seem to be a little persnickety when it comes to blight resistance.  They were the first plants to "fire up."  Maybe it's our growing conditions this year, but the fruit seems to fall off at the drop of a hat.  I find a lot of undamaged green tomatoes on the ground.  The fruit that falls off will eventually ripen, but it doesn't seem to have much flavor.  Also, I'm not particularly thrilled with the central core thing, which seems to reach all the way to the bottom of the fruit.  This core is a bit tough, almost stringy; I've manually pulled it out of every San Marzano I've canned.  

It may be that I'm picking (or picking up!) the San Marzanos too green, too un-ripe.  I've picked a good many, so far, some of which have seemed ripe enough.  But they haven't had that rich, dark color that store-bought canned San Marzanos have.  I'm going to leave the rest of the crop on the vine a little longer to see if that improves the texture and flavor.

The Defiant tomatoes determinate and are doing a good job of supplying me with a lot of ripe tomatoes at once.  These plants made clusters of smooth tennis-ball-sized fruit.  They are getting ready to be picked.  I'm going to re-order seeds for this variety.  I'm also going to order some Ruby Monster tomato seeds.  This is also a determinate variety, and based on the pictures in the seed catalog, they look like a perfect canning tomato, and not too bad for sandwiches, either.

Sunday morning, I picked a 5-gallon bucket full of tomatoes, all varieties.  I got just the ripest tomatoes, and left that many more on the vines.  The batch yielded 6 quarts, plus almost another quart, which wasn't full enough to preserve.  I put the "almost quart" in the refrigerator and will re-heat it and can it with the next batch, if I can.

My intention was to pick tomatoes again this afternoon, but I'll have to wait until late in the day to do it.  It is ridiculously hot and humid outside today, and I don't intend to go to the garden until the sun goes down.  This means I won't have time (or energy) to start processing them today.  Tomorrow, I'll probably only have enough time to scald, peel, and chop the tomatoes; the canning will have to wait until the next day.

I expect that a lot of things need to be picked.  Our green beans are Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and I don't like for them to get very big - the pods get tough.  The pepper plants are loaded, but since I don't intend to do anything with them right away, I'm going to leave them alone and let them turn red. 

When I walked by the cucumber patch yesterday, it was BUZZING with bees.  We have a friend who has asked for some big cucumbers, so we're going to let them grow for a few days.  Then I might pull up all but one or two of the vines and plant something else in their place.  While digging through our freezer, I found a freezer bag of seed packets - broccoli, carrots, brussells sprouts . . . .  Around the middle of August, I'm going to see if they'll sprout for a fall garden.

Old Stories - Canned goods - July 24, 2021

 Today, I am going to take my brother some of the tomato relish/chili sauce that I made from the tomatoes our sister picked from his garden while he was on vacation.  As I was thinking about what other canned goodies I might take him, a memory from my childhood popped into my mind.

Great-uncle Garner was born in 1904 and farmed for his living.  By the time I was 10 years old, he'd sold most of his property and had retired from farming.  He and his wife, Aunt Lee, never had any children, and he was fond of my mother and her siblings, his nieces and nephews.  When I was a child, he visited my mother on a daily basis, sometimes more than once a day.  And he was always good for a story or two.

Uncle Garner's mother died of a miscarriage in 1914, when he was six years old.  His father remarried to a kind, sweet woman two years later, but she died not long after the marriage.  In 1919, his father married again, and this woman, Mary, was not so kind and sweet.

Not long after their marriage, Uncle Garner's father noticed that the family's supply of canned peaches and other canned goods had diminished.  When he mentioned this to Mary, she blamed the disappearance on Uncle Garner, said he'd probably sneaked them out of the house and eaten them.  Uncle Garner, innocent of the crime, pled "not guilty," but his father still suspected him.

One day, as the family was preparing to visit one of Mary's grown and married daughters, Uncle Garner's father sent him to put something under the wagon seat.  As Uncle Garner did what he was told, he noticed that there was already a box, hidden under a quilt, under the wagon seat.  He peeked under the quilt and found that the box was full of canned goods.  He summoned his father to the wagon and showed him what was under the seat.

"And we didn't have any more food disappear after that," Uncle Garner said with a satisfied chuckle.

* * * * * * * * 

I cooked and canned the cucumber relish that I chopped and prepared yesterday.  The recipe usually yields 5 pints of relish, with a "sample" left over.  I've gotten pretty good at "eye-balling" a pot of vegetables to predict how many jars I'll need, but I always sterilize one extra jar, just in case.  Yesterday, I needed TWO extra jars - 7 pints total.

This canning makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 jars of relish.  THAT'S ENOUGH.  No more relish.  I swear it.

Tomatoes and Cucumber Relish - July 22, 2021

 I picked about 4 gallons of tomatoes after work today, as well as some purple hull peas.  Gave the peas to Nanny; it was about enough for supper for her and The Nephew.

Came home, scalded, peeled, chopped, and canned the tomatoes.  Got 4 quarts.

Chopped cucumbers, onions, and peppers for relish.  It ought to make 5 or 6 pints.  It's soaking in salt in the refrigerator.  I'll can it tomorrow after work.  This will make about 15 pints of cucumber relish.  THAT'S ENOUGH.  I'll be giving cucumbers away for the rest of the summer, or until I pull up the vines, whichever first occurs.

Saturday, it'll be time to start over with tomatoes.

Time to fire up the canner - July 22, 2021

 I am going to be busy in the kitchen this weekend.

We checked on the garden last night and found that EVERYTHING was in dire need of picking.

We got the cucumbers (a 5-gallon bucket full), the green beans, and the squash.  

Some critter got about half-a-dozen nice tomatoes and munched them in the row.

The tomato plants are LOADED with ripe tomatoes.  I'm going to pick them this afternoon and start processing them tomorrow when I come home from work.  This is going to take a while.

The Swamp - July 20, 2021

 If you've been wondering what I've been doing in the garden these past few days, the answer is "nothing."

It has rained every day for four days.

Our garden is a swamp.

The last time I was in the garden (last Friday), I saw a zucchini that was big enough to pick.  Ever since then, I've been planning on making some zucchini bread.  Today after work I went to get the zucchini.  It was the size of a small watermelon, and there were several others that were just right for eating.  Fortunately, the zucchini is on the front row of the garden, and we'd spread a thick layer of pine needles around the plants, so I was able to *gingerly* step onto the soil far enough to twist off the zucchinis.  

That one zucchini was so big that after I cut out the spongy seed parts, there was enough zucchini left to make two loaves of zucchini bread, and that was using only the top half of the thing.  I chopped up the rest of it for the compost pile.  

One of the zucchini bread loaves is savory; the recipe called for green onions and cheese, and I added a minced clove of fresh garlic.  The other loaf is a sweet bread, with raisins and pecans.  They're in the oven now.

It'll probably be two days before the garden dries up enough to get in there and pick stuff.  And that's IF it doesn't rain anymore.

There'll be a lot of picking to do, and a lot of canning.

Tomatoes, tomatoes - July 17, 2021

 

My sister called me a couple of days ago and said that our brother was out of town, and on Friday she was going to pick the vegetables in his garden while he was gone.  She wondered if I would want any of the vegetables she expected to harvest.

I thought about my own garden.  I'd already planned to pick my own tomatoes Friday for another batch of chili sauce.  The cucumbers would probably need picking, too.  I asked my sister to call me after she'd done her picking.

That evening, The Husband and I went down to our garden to see how things were progressing.  One of the San Marzano tomato plants had begun to turn yellow, and I had sprayed it with peroxide-water to see if it would halt the process.  It hadn't.  It was painful, but I pulled up the plant, picked off all of the green and half-ripe tomatoes, and tossed the plant over the hill.  I soaked its neighbors with the peroxide-water, hoping to stave off any fungus that had attached to them.  While I was doing this, The Husband picked the cucumbers and green beans; we gave those to Nanny, but kept the squash that he'd also picked.

Yesterday morning, my sister called from our brother's garden.  She'd picked about 3 dozen tomatoes, some okra, and a nice eggplant.  She said she'd leave them on the porch.  She also said that the okra was infested with Japanese beetles and wondered if I could bring some bug dust to kill them.  I said I would.

When I got off work yesterday, I headed for my brother's house.  On the way, I stopped to buy some bug spray for the beetles.  Just as I got to my brother's driveway, rain started to pour down.  I sprinted to the front porch to get the vegetables and then waited in my car for a while to see if the rain would let up.  But my weather radar app showed a big cloud coming, and I eventually left without spraying the okra.

I came home and went right to work scalding and chopping my brother's tomatoes.  There weren't quite enough to make a whole batch of chili sauce, so I went to our garden for enough to finish the batch.  It took three hours to process all those tomatoes and chop the onions and peppers.  By that time, The Husband had come home from work, and it was time to start supper.  I put the big pan of chopped vegetables in the refrigerator to deal with in the morning.

Today, I cooked it.  And cooked it.  And cooked it.  It has to cook for 45 minutes before the spices and vinegar are added.  Then it has to cook down by half.   Altogether, I must have cooked that stuff for nearly three hours.  

But it is really tasty.

HOT Salsa! - July 15, 2021

 

Yesterday the tomatoes on the back porch sill had ripened enough to can.  The original plan was to make another batch of chili sauce, but somewhere between the peeling and the canning, I decided to make salsa, instead.

We'd been digging through recipe books and found a small pamphlet from the UT Extension Service that had a salsa recipe in it.  

5 pounds of tomatoes 

1 pound of onions

2 pounds - yes, TWO POUNDS - of blistered peeled chili peppers

1 tbs canning salt

1 cup of vinegar

1/2 tsp black pepper

The peppers had to be blistered/blackened, either directly over a burner or under the broiler.  I did mine under the broiler and then put them in a covered bowl to let them sweat to loosen the skins.  

After all the vegetables are chopped, all the ingredients go in the pot and are boiled for 10 minutes, then put into the jars and water-bath processed for 15 minutes.

Let me tell you...this salsa is HOT HOT HOT!

I used some off-brand canning lids bought from Amazon.  I don't like them, don't trust them.  They are flimsy.  

A little Monday evening excitement ;) - July 13, 2021

 I bought a black-light flashlight today.  Knowing that it was still too light to use it, I had it in my pocket when I went down to the garden about 7 p.m. to put down a cardboard box.  

The Nephew was out in the yard when I got there.  He was standing on the hillside, looking across the soybean field.  When I got out of the car, he said, "I wouldn't go to the garden this evening if I was you."

I asked, "Why not?"

"There's a wild bull loose."

I was, like, what?

But I went to the garden, anyway, and laid down the cardboard, then moved over to the tomato rows just to see if my new flashlight would shed light on tomato worms.  It truly was too light to use the flashlight, but I spied one tomato worm and put the light directly on him; he looked sort of purple under the black light.

In a minute, Nanny came out to help me look for tomato worms.  We were moving up the rows when we heard something thump in the woods.  We both raised up to listen.  Did you hear that?  It sounded more like a black walnut falling from a free than a bull crashing through the woods.  

We went back to our worm-hunting.

The Nephew got in his truck and drove away, but was back in a few minutes.  He'd apparently been scouting for wild bull.  He said that the owner and some other guys were on horseback looking for the bull, and had some dogs on its trail.

I can hear the dogs baying.  

I'd hate to have to catch a wild bull.

Tomato Picking - July 13, 2021

 I'd been holding off on picking the tomatoes so that they could get ripe, ripe, RIPE for another batch of chili sauce.  Yesterday, I decided it was time to go get 'em.  

Once I got them home with them, I decided they weren't quite ripe enough, after all, so I laid them on the sill on the back porch to ripen for another day or two.  They'll get a little sun from mid-morning until early evening, and they'll be safe from the wildlife in the garden.

As I was approaching the garden, Nanny came out the back door in her hat and gloves, carrying a picking bag.  She was coming to look for tomato worms, she said.  She didn't find any.

Since her picking bag was empty, we filled it with peppers, zucchini, and enough green beans for supper.

I read that tomato worms will fluoresce at night if you shine a black-light flashlight on them.  I'm eager to try it!  

First Green Bean Picking - July 11, 2021

 This whole tomato worm thing has got me a little on edge.  They're down there, chomping away on the tomato plants.  I should have sprayed bug spray yesterday, but rain was predicted, and I figured that it would be a waste of time to spray.  Today, I waded in mud and pulled off and stomped about 6 more worms.  

There were enough green beans for supper, with some left over.  I offered half of them to Nanny, but she wouldn't take them.  

The Nephew had mowed Nanny's yard yesterday, and there were a lot of damp grass clippings for the compost pile.  It needed some green material, so I was happy to rake it up.  Got a big wagon-load of it.

We didn't get any pictures of the raccoon trying to break into the compost tumbler last night.  Maybe he didn't want to get out in the rain.  But the camera is ready for him if he comes tonight.

Cucumber Relish Batch #2 - July 11, 2021

 

I went down to the garden yesterday morning to check for tomato worms.  We'd had what seemed like a good, slow rain the prior evening, and I was expecting the garden to be too muddy to do much tromping around.  But either we didn't get as much rain as I thought or the ground soaked it right up, for I had no problem moving around; there was no actual mud anywhere.

I dispatched one tomato worm.  Tied some of the vines to the fence.  And, since it was not muddy, I got a hoe and started chopping grass between the tomatoes and the cucumbers.  In the process, I discovered a lot of cucumbers - five gallons, to be exact.  I gave Nanny some of the smaller ones and brought the rest home to start a new batch of cucumber relish.

But there was a problem: I had plenty of regular canning jars, but no regular canning lids.  When I mentioned this to The Husband, he said that one of his social media friends had come into a big batch of canning lids, but needed cucumbers.  We worked a trade with her; she gave me a stack of lids, and I gave her a sack full of cucumbers.  Win-win.

I'll be canning the relish later today.

* * * * * * * * * 

Last night, all of my kids and grandkids came over for pizza, watermelon, and birthday cake.  It was so much fun.  Both of my sons brought their guitars, The Husband got out his ukulele, and there as a concert on the back porch.  Fun times.

New-fangled Technology (and Rain) - July 10, 2021

 Yesterday I had a marathon telephone conversation with a friend.  We do that.  We'll go weeks without talking, then catch up with a double-header (with extra innings).  One of the topics of yesterday's conversation was new technology.  In our younger days, both of us would jump at the chance to learn a new computer program, or put together a shed from a kit, or figure out how to program a thermostat; now, we both would rather not be bothered; we want out-of-the-box full functionality.

I thought about our conversation last night when I looked over and saw the box containing the new trail cam I bought for The Husband for Father's Day.  I chose that model because of its Bluetooth and wi-fi capabilities, thinking it would help us catch the armadillos that dig up our yard at night.  The problem has been that no one can figure out how to program the blasted thing.  It's supposed to send the pictures to The Husband's cell phone, but the phone and the cam wouldn't recognize one another.  The Husband had even given a teenager a shot at setting it up, and he couldn't figure it out, either.  It seemed hopeless.

But I really, really want to watch the raccoons try to get into the new compost bin.

And so I picked up the camera box and had a go at setting it up, myself.

Took me more than an hour, with the camera, the instruction manual (which was written by a non-English-speaking person), and The Husband's cell phone all spread out on the couch. 

Tonight I shall put food scraps in the compost bin.  <evil grin>

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We got a good, slow rain yesterday afternoon, enough to melt the fertilizer I put down in the garden two days ago.  

I gave myself the day off from work yesterday, and spent the morning working in the garden.  Tomato worms have found the tomato plants.  It's supposed to rain all weekend, so there wasn't much use in spraying bug spray.  I stomped half-a-dozen of the little monsters, and probably missed a dozen more.  All afternoon, I imagined the worms I missed, chomping away on the plants, getting bigger by the minute.  Maybe they'll be a little easier to spot today.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I wrecked my car in Nanny's yard Thursday night.

Yep.

I'd come home with a 50 pound bag of lime and a 40 pound bag of fertilizer.  It did not occur to me that I could pull the yard wagon to the driveway to get the bags.  Instead, I drove my car across Nanny's yard and parked it close to the shed, so The Husband and I wouldn't have so far to carry the bags.  We used some of the fertilizer right from the back of the car.  It was almost dark when we left the garden.  

My car doesn't have a back-up camera, but as I backed up to turn around, I could see the tree trunk in my rear-view mirror.  What I did not see was the limb that was *not quite* above the roof of the car.  I ended up punching a big dimple in the side of the car, high up, between the rear side window and the hatch.  *sigh*

What a pain, eh?

Be Careful What You Wish For - July 9, 2021

 

It must have been on our way home from the 4th of July barbeque - I remember we were in the car together, and we rarely are in the car together - that I said to The Husband that we need a better composting system.  

Years ago, my sister gave me a big barrel-shaped tumbler, which we set up in the edge of the yard.  It's too far from the house to be convenient for kitchen scraps, and it periodically gets wrapped up in English ivy.  Sometimes, wasps build nests in the recesses of the stand.  They've nailed me a time or two.  In short, it's scary to use it.  Plus, it's harder than heck to get the compost out without dumping most of it on the ground.  

For the past couple of years, I've been trying to build a compost pile by the garden shed at Nanny's.  I save my kitchen scraps in a big coffee can and dump them on the pile when the can gets full.  It worries Nanny; she's afraid that the food scraps will draw rats to her yard.  They do draw some kind of critter - one that  doesn't care for raw onions.  It disassembles the pile, digging for the food scraps.   

In the car, I mused (out loud) about ways to hem up the pile.

Yesterday, when I got home from work, there was a big box, addressed to The Husband, on the front porch.  On the outside of the box, in big letters:  "COMPOSTER."

Hot diggety-dog!

The box was about a foot tall, maybe 3" square.  I dragged it into the house and set it in the entry hall. 

I sensed that some assembly would be required.

When The Husband got home, he came out to the porch and plunked the box down beside my chair.  "Happy birthday," he said.  

I looked up at him and said, "Thank you.  I know you're planning to assemble it for me."  

He said certainly he was.

We opened the box.  There were a zillion pieces inside, along with a pair of gardening gloves and, strangely, a pair of thin white gloves, almost like those your grandmother would've worn to church.  

The white gloves totally creeped me out (I threw them in the garbage can at once).  

The gardening gloves are cool, though.  The right hand has claws on it.

When I put them on, I felt like a mole.

Anyway, we got the composter assembled, and set it near the patio, where it will be convenient.  

Once I put food in it, we are going to strap the trail cam to the patio umbrella and set it to video, so we can see how long it takes the raccoons to figure out how to open the doors.

Chili Sauce - July 8, 2021

The first batch of chili sauce is done.  

From heating the first pan of water to scald the skin off the tomatoes, it took 4 hours to make these five jars of stuff, but it was worth it.  Now all I need is a bowl of white beans and some cornbread.  ;)

I had to supplement my garden peppers with a couple of store-bought peppers.

Except for the tomato crop, I'm not all that thrilled with the way the garden is growing.  Several of my squash plants are sickly.  The peas, green beans, and butterbeans aren't looking particularly great, either.  

Yesterday I bought a giant bag of fertilizer.  Gonna put some of it down when I get home today.  

First Big Tomato Picking - July 7, 2021

 

Yesterday there were enough ripe tomatoes to make a batch of chili sauce.  

We've been getting enough tomatoes for sandwiches and such, but this was the first "big picking."  My recipe calls for 4 quarts of chopped tomatoes ("about 24 large," it says).  I'm a couple of tomatoes short of 4 quarts, but I left some on the vines to ripen a tad more.  I'll go back to the garden and get a few more before I start the chili sauce.  

This year, it's tough to find canning jars and lids.  Everybody in the county must be canning this year.  I have a good supply of jars, and enough lids to do the chili sauce, but I'll need more lids before the next batch.

4th of July - July 5, 2021

 

Nearly every 4th of July and Thanksgiving, Cousin Gus invites us (and The Husband's whole extended family) to come eat.  Gus provides the meat (barbequed pork shoulders in July, and turkey at Thanksgiving), and everybody brings a side dish or a dessert.  We had to skip last year because of covid, so it was especially good to see everyone this year.  

There's always so much food at these events.  It's hard to know what to take that someone else won't bring.  This year, we took a sliced watermelon and a chocolate cake with caramel frosting (yes, a duplicate of the cake that I made for Granddaughter #1's birthday).  The only problem is flies.  We have to un-cover all the dishes so that folks can get to the food, but then so can the flies.  We brought home the left-over cake and watermelon, but I hate to eat them, knowing they were probably licked by a thousand flies before the meal was over.

But it was a fun time.  The barbeque was delicious, as usual.  And the weather was perfect.  This was the first 4th of July that I can remember that we haven't come home drenched with sweat and sapped from the heat.

Last night, it seemed like everyone in our neighborhood was celebrating with fireworks.  As soon as darkness fell, the noise started.  By midnight, I was ready to climb out of bed and holler, "KNOCK THIS SH*T OFF, ALREADY!"  

This evening, we're going to do a little grilling of our own and hope some children and grandchildren show up to eat.  

Canning Day - July 3, 2021

 

I was a little slow getting started this morning.  Cut me a break; it was Saturday, and I'd stayed up too late reading.  (I'm reading a book called The Overstory.  It's pretty good.)  About 8:30, I was drinking coffee on the back porch and working the WSJ crossword puzzle, when my son's big Rottweiler came loping around the corner.  I did not speak to him because I did not want to fool with him.  He sniffed his way across the back yard and into the neighbor's yard, and then he suddenly raised his head and perked up his ears, came loping back, and asked to come onto the porch.  Instead of letting him in, I got up and went outside.  My son was not in the yard, he was across the road at Nanny's, and I heard him whistle.  Apparently, Axel the Beast had heard the whistle, too.  I don't know why he wanted on the porch.  Standing in the driveway, I pointed toward Nanny's shop (where my son's truck was parked), and I said, "Axel, GO."  He trotted to the end of the driveway and turned around and looked at me.  I pointed again and said, "GO!" and he trotted across the road and down the driveway.  I came back and finished my puzzle.

A little after noon, Cousin Roger rolled up on his lawnmower.  He said, "I don't want nothin'.  I just came to visit."  We shot the breeze for a while.  When he went home, I went in the house and started on the relish.

The cucumber/onion/pepper mixture had soaked in the refrigerator overnight.  It had to be drained and rinsed and drained again, then spiced and cooked.  I'd already washed the jars in the dishwasher.  Had to send The Husband to the attic to get the water-bath canner.  I rinsed it out, put the jars in it, filled it up with water, and heaved it over to the stove to heat and sterilize the jars. 

Making the cucumber relish is a little bit of a crap shoot every.  The recipe calls for 10 - 12 large cucumbers (and doesn't say how many pints it should yield).  I mean, what is "large?"  Big as a grocery-store cucumber?  Big as a baseball bat?  I hadn't even counted how many I'd used.  Might've been 8, might've been 12.  <shrug>  Ground up, it made a big soup pan full, and that was without the 4 "large" onions and 2 "large" peppers.  My onions and peppers were small, so I just chopped up every pepper and onion in the house.  In addition to the store-bought red peppers, which were quite large, I threw in some pimientos and a couple of serranos and cayennes.  Moved it all into the large spaghetti pot and cooked it down low.  

The recipe didn't say how long to water-bath it.  In fact, it didn't say water-bath it, period.  It said put the relish into hot jars and seal them.  This is an old, old recipe.  I expect many a household has eaten un-water-bathed relish without dying from food poisoning.  But I like to water-bath stuff.  I got out the "Canning and Freezing" pamphlet from the County Extension Service.  Checked the times for several pickled relishes.  Some said to water-bath for 5 minutes, some said 10, some said 15.  I water-bathed it for 12 minutes and called it done.

After the canning, I talked The Husband into getting the tractor and helping me load up some pine needles from Uncle B's yard across the road.  While he went to get the tractor, I got my pitchfork out of the shed and went across the road to start raking.  Uncle B, Aunt Bonnie, and Cousin Roger all came out to watch. The pine needles were several inches deep between the tree line and Uncle B's shed.   I loaded the bucket on the tractor three times and barely made a dent in them.  Uncle B said I could come back and get all I want.  He said he's kind of worried about all those pine needles piling up.  He said, "A little bit of fahr in there would be bad. I wouldn't mind if you got them all."  I looked down the path, and thought, Shit.  This poor old man was worried about his shed burning down, but I was about done for the day.  Plus, the path beyond where I'd raked was hairy with poison ivy.  I raked a little more but realized that this was going to be a big, big job.  And I'd already told The Husband not to come back with the tractor.  I told Uncle B to call me when his other son comes to visit, and I'd help him get rid of the fire hazard.

Then I had to go spray Nanny's rose bushes, which were twitching with Japanese beetles.  

Then we sprayed the green beans, for they had beetles, too.  And put down a little more cardboard in the middles, and pulled a little more grass.

Then I come home, showered, and made a chocolate cake to take to Cousin Gus's annual family 4th of July cookout tomorrow.

And now I really am done for the day.

Relishing - July 2, 2021

 

I went down to the garden after work today, intending to just look, no plans to do any work, expecting the ground to be too muddy to walk on.  A couple more of our squash plants had wilted.  I don't know if bugs caused it or if they're just water-logged.  I did not see any bugs, nor did I see any holes bored in the stems.  While I was examining the squash, I picked it.  I also picked the cucumbers and found some HUGE ones that had grown big but had not turned yellow.  Picked them, and a few ripe tomatoes.  Some of the pepper plants had fallen over, heavy with peppers.  I picked the peppers, too.

It turned out that I filled up a big bag with vegetables, mostly those giant cucumbers.  Nanny took a tomato or two.  Uncle B took a couple more tomatoes, some squash and some peppers.  Barely made a dent in the bag.  I came home and chopped up some tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions, and soaked them in sweetened vinegar.  We had some for supper.

Since I had all those giant cucumbers, there was no better time to start a batch of cucumber relish.  There weren't enough onions and peppers for the amount of cucumbers, so I had to go to the store to boost my supply.  I bought red peppers to pretty-up the relish.  Also stocked up on sugar and vinegar.  There were no canning lids to be found.

In a day or two, there'll be enough ripe tomatoes to make a batch of chili sauce.  That's the stuff I love best!

I may not make any pickles this year.  We still have some left from last year, and I am short on storage space.  If we run out before next year, I'll just have to buy some.  *gasp*

Anyway, the relish is soaking in the refrigerator.  Some time tomorrow, I'll cook it and get it in the jars.

One of the watermelon seeds I planted in the tray on the front porch has sprouted.  

I forgot to check on the butternut squash.

Rain! - July 1, 2021

 

It's raining again.  Mother Nature didn't play today; she sent us a good soaker.  

It's 9 p.m., and I am sitting on the back porch, listening to the rain and the frogs croaking in the pond down the hill.  I reckon the frogs are liking this.  I reckon I do, too.

But I'm thinking about what all I'll need to do once the garden dries up.

The rain will have washed off all the stuff I sprayed on the tomatoes, and I'll need to reapply peroxide/water, fungicide, and bug-icide.  

The cucumbers and zucchini I did not pick two days ago will be the size of baseball bats.  I'll make relish out of the big cucumbers (if they're not tooooo big), and zucchini bread out of the zucchini (the bread is really the only reason I even grow zucchini).  

There will probably be an apron-load of ripe tomatoes.  

I need to fertilize the green beans and butterbeans, and wanted to do it with a water-soluble fertilizer on the end of a water hose, but the ground may be too wet for a few days to soak up the fertilizer.  If I had side-dressed them with granular fertilizer before this rain, I'd be all happy about it now.  But I didn't (and still don't) have any.

I am grateful for the cardboard we put down in the garden.  That'll save us at least a little bit of weeding when the ground dries up enough to work it.