Filling The Harvest Baskets
August 10, 2011The harvest baskets have been filled to overflowing this year. Despite the awful heat and lack of rain in July, we’ve had a fairly good harvest this year. The past couple of weeks I have been freezing broccoli, canning peaches, and canning green beans.
Most days when I go into the gardens, I take a basket with me and add the typical garden produce: cucumbers, peppers, onions….whatever is ready to pick. The tomatoes are ripe now so I’ve been picking a basket or more each day.
This year, we are growing a variety of tomatoes, some new ones and some favorites.
Needless to say, we are eating lots of salads and tomatoes. I’ve also been canning tomato-based sauces like this batch of Zesty Salsa from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.
Last weekend we started digging some of the potatoes, being sure to keep all of the varieties separate. Some of these varieties we want to grow again and will need to keep seed for next Spring. We’ve only dug 2 rows of potatoes so far but we’ll get around to digging the rest of them some day. 
Certainly looks like the gardens at Wood Ridge are doing well this year. Such a beautiful selection of tomatoes, what variety might those funky looking multi-lobed ones be?
Your beans look plentiful, our green beans are just coming on and with any luck we should be working them in another couple days.
That zesty salsa is a good one, we are still enjoying last seasons batch.
Enjoy the fruits of your labor, with the way things are going we will all need to produce more and more of our own food stuffs so that we can feed not only ourselves but those of our family that cannot comprehend or acknowledge the importance of food self-reliance.
Oh, and nice potatoes….I love purple potatoes.:)
Mike, I really wish that I could tell you what those tomatoes were but I’m stumped! My records say one thing, those tomatoes tell me differently! I have been to the website where I ordered the seed and I’m still stumped because nothing matches well. I have decided to save seeds, though. It is a sweet tomato and prolific. And isn’t it a pretty, lobed tomato? If you’d like some seeds, I will happily share with you.
Everything looks beautiful, Lynn. Don’t you love fresh tomatoes?
Carol, tomato season is one of the highlights of Summer at our house!! Thanks for stopping by!
It’s definitely a busy time of the year! It looks like you are having a good year in spite of all this crazy weather!
I’ve been doing the “can can” for weeks now!
Robin, I’ve been in can-city for a while, too. I am only now getting some spare time to read and write blogs. Shameful!!
Oh wow look at all that produce! My beans have bloomed like crazy for weeks but NO BEANS. It was too hot for them I guess. Now that it’s cooled off, they have a zillion little ones on them all of a sudden.
GirlGoneGardening, I hope you are able to enjoy some beans this Summer. Here, the intense heat has left us and we’ve enjoyed some nice weather lately. Here’s hoping the rest of August is somewhat mild for our veggies to grow!
Beautiful! I could just dive into the maters. I gave up on my garden. Between the record heat and being gone 3 weeks a stretch,it just couldn’t hang on. I’m limping my truck back home. Cam shaft is bad for the 3rd time. I’ve no choice but to let my truck go back. It’s drained me of any means to get repaired again. $22,000 a pop fir the cam shaft. Looks like I’m gonna die a wage slave.
Brad I’m really sorry to hear about the truck — the timing is the pits. If you were nearby, I’d gladly share some maters with you.
hi, found your blog today and it’s feeling like a vacation on the countryside for me. I’m a dutch woman living in the city, love it, but can also really enjoy your way of live. Thanks for the inspiration I’ve got here…… tomorrow I’m gone make green tomatoes marmalade.
Hi Claudia. Green tomato marmalade sounds wonderful. I’m not sure how we will use up our green tomatoes this year but I’ve found some very nice recipes I hope to try. Hope your marmalade turns out well!