Recently in How does my garden grow? Category

It's been a beautiful spring so far (all 2 days of it) in the Ozarks.  My windows are open and I'm enjoying the crisp breeze as I write this.  I hadn't planned to do much of a garden this year, but then I decided I might as well try to do a few no-brainer things.  I have had really good luck with peas and lettuce in the past, so I planted some seeds today and we'll see what comes up.  I've never grown green beans, but I hear they are pretty easy so I will probably attempt those as well (I think I still need to wait a little while to plant them, though.)

Unlike last year, when I was all-consumed with caring for a brand new baby, by the time the plants are producing this summer, I bet Josiah will enjoy spending some time outside while I pick peas or pull a few weeds.  I can't wait for him to taste his first fresh-picked garden veggies.  Yum!

Grow, my pretties, grow!
Originally uploaded by kerner

I've been very lucky the past couple of weeks - we've gotten rain about every other day, and the temperatures have been a delightful moderate 70-80 degrees (unheard of for July in Missouri, but I'll take it!). Lucky, that is to say, because I have completely been ignoring my garden and it seems to be doing fine without me. It's good to know not everything around here is falling apart!

(ah, here comes another rain storm now. Seriously, I don't think I've had to water my plants in a month. Craziness.)

My "big" tomato plant continues to look like a half-dead weed, but there are about 4-5 tomatoes on it that look somewhat promising. My cherry tomato plant is doing much better. I get about 2 ripe tomatoes a day (which mysteriously disappear if I don't pick them immediately - is my dog eating them?), but it's still putting on lots of blooms, and I think I'm going to be flooded in cherry tomatoes before long.

Renegade cherry tomatoes jump the fence
Originally uploaded by kerner

I get so frustrated with my ineptitude at gardening sometimes, but there really is nothing like walking into the backyard, picking a tomato off the plant, and popping it in my mouth. Yes - I AM the master of the universe... or at least this little 4x8 foot section of it.

I have about a 2ft x 2ft area in one corner of my garden that has been empty ever since the lettuce bolted and I pulled it out. What should I plant?

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Originally uploaded by kerner

Leaving work on Friday morning to go spend the day with my grandparents was a fantastic idea, if I do say so myself. My cousin Paul was visiting too, so I got to chat with him and catch up on the news about his 3 siblings before he went off to do some work on my uncle Gene's farm down the road.  

Shadow the Green Bean Hunter
Originally uploaded by kerner

After he left, Grandma and I got down to green bean canning. She wasn't sure she was going to have enough green beans at first, but there turned out to be quite a few hiding under the leaves. I also got to meet my grandpa's new dog, Shadow. For some reason he really wanted to "help" with the bean picking by trying to get between me (or Grandma) and the beans, but he wasn't trying to eat them or anything. I think he's still a puppy, but they're not really sure because apparently he had been living in the barn for a while before he decided to become the new family dog.

Screw the lids on tight!
Originally uploaded by kerner

I very much enjoyed my canning lesson from Grandma.  She pretty much let me do everything, although the details about how long to process the beans in the pressure cooker, etc. were just a magic number in her head.  I assume there are instructions somewhere if I ever get a pressure cooker of my own to use.  She sent me home with my efforts, 5 pint jars ("since there are just two of you) and two 1 1/2-pint jars ("for company").  She has already canned 55 qts of green beans this summer, and did about 3 more while I was there to finish up what we had picked.  I think she's ready for a long winter!

That's a lot of fruit!
Originally uploaded by kerner

Chop, chop!
Originally uploaded by kerner

Jammin'
Originally uploaded by kerner

Sterilize, sterilize, sterilize
Originally uploaded by kerner

Finished jam
Originally uploaded by kerner

I did it!  I made 12 quarts (plus) of mixed summer berry preserves and canned it.  It was quite an undertaking. 

First of all, that much jam requires a gob of fruit.  Like, 6 packs of strawberries, 4 packs of blueberries, and 2 bags of cherries, plus one bag of frozen raspberries thrown in for good measure.  Luckily I caught them on sale.  I guess that's kind of the point of canning, isn't it, to get the fruit at its peak and at its best price?

(I only get a little bit of fruit each week with my farmshare, so yes I caved and bought non organic fruit from the evil Wal Mart empire.  I've never done this before and didn't feel like wasting $50 of fruit from the farmer's market.)

When I made the cherry jam, I didn't chop up the cherries at all after pitting them, and it was quite chunky.  To eliminate that this time around, I sent everything through the food processor for a few pulses. 

I cooked the jam in two batches because the canner I bought only holds 7 jars at a time.  Since I had 12 jars to work with, I split the fruit in half and did 6 and 6.  Apparently the key to good jam is to cook it as hot and fast as you can without burning it.  This is a lot easier said than done when you are making a huge batch.  I followed the recipe for cooking times even though it wasn't cooked down as much as I thought it would be.  I think that's what the pectin is for. 

I was raelly paranoid about getting everything super clean, and I'm still not sure I did it right.  But so far (a week later) the jars don't look moldy and the jam appears to have set up, so I think I'm in the clear.

Now that I've gotten a small taste of success, I have a whole list of other things I really want to try to can: peach halves, apple butter, maybe even tomatoes or the elusive tomato jelly?  I have delusions of a Christmas gift basket with canned goods from every month of the year. Thankfully, I know myself well enough to know that that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Tomato
Originally uploaded by kerner

To-mah-to
Originally uploaded by kerner

Good news... my every-other-day waterings are working! I have about 8 little bitty tomatoes starting on the tomato plant that I thought was dying. My grape tomato plant is looking pretty good too!  Still nothing on the lima brean front, but I remain hopeful. 

Gardening is interesting for me... I'm really quite terrible at it, but for some reason I keep trying.  I went to a class at a gardening center earlier this spring, and I was really convinced this was going to be the year.  Turns out I still have quite a bit to learn, but that's okay.  I do feel quite blessed that I don't have to depend on this little garden to feed myself or my family.  Both my grandmothers managed to do that for quite large families, which is totally amazing to me.  I think I need to drive out to the farm soon and see if there's any tips I can get grandma to share.

Late May Garden
Originally uploaded by kerner

This is my garden exactly 1 month ago. So pretty - peas threatening to climb off the trellis and into the trees above, tomato plants growing strong, lettuce plentiful...

My sad, pathetic garden
Originally uploaded by kerner

Here is my garden today. The peas and lettuce are done, so I ripped them out. They are spring crops so I guess I'm not that surprised that a week of 95 degree weather did them in. One of my tomato plants mysteriously turned yellow, shriveled up and dried, so I ripped it out. The remaining cherry tomato plant looks pretty decent, but the big tomato plant is growing like gangbusters, yet only has about 3 blooms on it.

How frustrating. Not that I really know what I'm doing when it comes to gardening, but I really had my hopes up this year. Even though I know it's too late, I planted some beans along the trellis just to try to salvage a little something out of the garden this year.

How is your garden doing not that we are in the heat of summer?

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Originally uploaded by kerner

Cherry Tomatoes - Hand for Scale
Originally uploaded by kerner 

June 6 Harvest
Originally uploaded by kerner

How fitting that I harvested my first veggies of the season - both sugar snap peas and regular peas, along with some lettuce - on the same day that my pastor spoke about the importance of bringing our best to God - our first fruits.

As I sat in church on Saturday night, I thought of how earlier that day I gobbled up those delicious sweet peas (some of them didn't even make it into the house). After watching them grow all season, watering and tending them, it was so exciting to finally, literally, enjoy the fruit of my labor.

I have to say, the phrase "first fruits" has to mean more to a gardener: You know exactly how long you've waited, and all the work that goes into it, before you ever get a single edible thing. I was challenged by that sermon to more consciously bring God my best in all that I do.