Summer is here in full force, and the fruits (well vegetables) of my gardening labors are arriving.
We pulled our first zucchini and butter stick squash for dinner this week
Clearly there are a lot more where that came from.
These little beauties are just waiting in the wings for dinner this weekend.
Mmmm Oregon Sugar Peas. Delightful fresh off the vine or even better lightly sauteed with a little balsamic vinaigrette.
Mmmmmmmm.
Next up, tomatoes. We have 5 plants this year, and 4 of them have little green fruits on them, hopefully with the heat we're having they will start turning red and yellow and Ruby and Celeste and I (Ryan doesn't like tomatoes!) will have a grand time snacking on them. The rainbow chard is finally looking like it may produce a little, and the lettuce still hasn't bolted, shocking for mid july! The soybeans and green beans are coming on slow, but hopefully we will get a few meals from each. I think the squash will be our big harvest this year, hopefully some will be eaten, and some will be frozen for winter.
Speaking of freezing things... we purchased our first cow this year! we split a 1/2 cow with my sister's family and are excited to see how long 153 lbs of cow (once it's butchered it's less, due to the bones and such) will last us. We also will have 8 or so farm fresh chickens (roasted one last week, and it was divine) in the new freezer we're putting in the basement. each chicken is between 6-8 lbs... which is a few meals for this family.
Besides getting grass fed meat in the freezer, we're also putting up jam like there's no tomorrow round these here parts. My goal is to put up 60 jars of jam by the end of the summer, and we've got quite a few already. I've made 9 jars of raspberry, 2 blueberry, 4 blueberry raspberry, 5 strawberry, 8 strawberry rhubarb and 1 lone marionberry. We're picking more blueberries this weekend, and maybe some more marionberries... and eventually blackberries. YUM. Then of course there are peaches in the late summer/early fall. PEACH JAM.... divine.
I'm also hoping to put up some jars of tomato sauce, and apple sauce. We'll see if other summer plans get in the way of all of this, who knows!
I need to email you and get your jam recipe. I would love to learn so much about the gardening from you. I am just learning by making mistakes but still my lettuce this year is great and I have a ton of it.
Posted by: rachel | July 11, 2008 at 04:33 PM
Wow! Busy! You will be enjoying the fruits of your labor all winter long.
Posted by: nicole | July 16, 2008 at 10:46 AM