More Relish - July 17, 2020

Lord have mercy, I'm tired.

There were ground relish fixings waiting on me when I got home.  They needed rinsing, spicing, cooking, and canning.  I found some regular-mouth jar flats at a little country store on my way to work, and since I didn't have to hunt for anything today, the canning went smoothly. 

Let me tell you, I am SICK of these freakin' cucumbers, but I still need to make kosher dills, and so when I finished canning the relish, I put on my boots and went to the garden to see if I could find enough cucumbers to make a batch of pickles.  And then I'm done with the cucumbers.  I told The Husband tonight that I am going to yank up those vines pretty soon.  He said he'd pick them and take them to people at work.  He'd better get his ass to pickin' this week, because next weekend, they're coming out.

After four hours of watering and a bodacious rain, the garden was muddy as heck.  My first step onto the soil sank nearly to the top of my boot.  The whole garden was that way, and I came close to face-planting in the mud more than once.  Everything out there needed picking.  I cut okra, picked tomatoes, yanked up a tomato plant that had turned lime green with blight, and went after the cucumbers and squash.  I made Nanny take the okra and the squash; I did not want to deal with them.  The green beans and purple hull peas will have to wait until tomorrow.

I came home, washed off my boots, and went to washing and slicing a dishpan full of cucumbers.  They're soaking in lime in the refrigerator.

After that, I scalded and peeled the tomatoes for chili sauce.  I had a collection of peppers in the vegetable drawer that needed to be used.  The Husband came home about the time I was heating up the water to scald the tomatoes.  We started an assembly line, where I scalded and iced the tomatoes while he peeled and cored them, and then I cored and seeded peppers while he chopped them in the Ninja.  I won't be able to finish the chili sauce tonight because I'm out of one of the spices and will have to make a grocery store run in the morning, but it's had its first cooking.  As soon as it cools enough to go in the refrigerator, I'm going to bed!