Monster Cukes and Other Garden Trivia

These two state fair quality beauties measuring 17 and 19 inches respectively, slipped past our attentive pickers eyes.  They were each snuggled close to or behind the green metal fence posts upon which the cucumber trellis is supported.  They were hiding under the leaves of cukes and beans.  Growing longer by the day.  I'm sure the inch of rain we finally got helped push them along to their mammoth lengths.  Both are Japanese varieties; small seeded, thin skinned, sweet, wet, crunchy, spectacular, even at this size.  The top one is a Suyo Long; prickly and ridged, fancy when cut cross-wise to reveal scalloped edges.  The bottom is a Tasty Jade, smooth and round.  Both are long time standards in our garden. 

I think I know how I'll be spending my day tomorrow 

It's sauce making time.   Despite the early blight, the tomatoes have done quite well and put on a very nice set of fruit.  This is definitely the peak week, we'll be eating as many as we possibly can. 

I was shocked to realize we haven't had a BLT yet, so I went to the store today to get all the ingredients for the ultimate sandwich.   Good rustic white bread, a head of lettuce and some decent bacon.  Tomorrows lunch.  Discussing tonight's dinner menu and this quest for BLT fixin's with  David this morning, I apologized for being geezerly in my anticipation of meals to come, but there you have it.  Got to have something to look forward to right?

Especially since we have cancelled our anticipated camping vacation for next week due to the fact that it looks like rain most every day in the mountains starting Sunday, the day we were to leave and lasting through the week :-(.   SO we are going to stay home and eat.  And work.  But considering all I've got to get done this month, its probably a wise decision.  Hopefully we'll get a chance to sneak off for a little fun at some point soon.

And with all those maters coming in, well, we probably ought to stick around to deal with them too.

FIG-alicious August

Whoa- what happened to August?
Let's see....
There was a vacation.

Here we are with our peeps out in Missouri

We had an amazing visit and adventure in the Ozarks with brother Jon and sister-in-law Candy.  Together we camped and floated down the crystal clear and cold spring fed Current River in the Ozarks National Scenic Riverways.  It was good to go and see everyone, but after 2,000 miles in the car and 9 nights in 7 places, we were glad to get back home.  We've been back a week and I'm just now feeling like I might be getting caught up on things, though you know the reality of life in the country, you never really get caught up.  Everywhere I look I see another task that needs tending to.

Something else that's been taking up lots of time, surprise, surprise- harvesting and processing.

Figs were coming in like crazy before we left, this is a fraction of what we were dealing with. 

 Add cupfuls of the above, fresh sliced ginger and lemon...

 

 Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble

Ta Dah!! 

20 jars of fig and ginger preserves to stash under the bed with the canned tomatoes and peaches.


I made another 4 pints yesterday with the ones we harvested after we returned, they are coming in daily and if we don't pick them quick, they turn to fruit fly and wasp food, dripping sour juice or full fledged fuzz balls covered with fur.  I think they are slowing down.  They sure are tasty both fresh and cooked.

The tomatoes really are finished and it's time to pull out the dead and dying squash, cukes and early beans and plant the fall garden.  I am happy to report the forecast for this week brings a cold front on Wed that will usher in cooler drier fall weather. Pretty much from the first hot humid days in June, I wait eagerly for the moment when the weather cools again.

But now- I need to go out and mow the grass.

My fig preserves:
12 cups (after prepping) washed, stemmed and halved fresh figs
6 cups of sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 whole lemon; quartered lengthwise, seeded and thinly sliced
2 inches of fresh ginger; peeled and thinly sliced
1 stick of cinnamon

Put it all together in a large heavy bottomed pot and bring to a simmer.  Cook one to two hours stirring frequently over a medium-low heat until thickened.  If you have a thermometer, it should reach 221 degrees.  Be careful not to scorch or burn on the bottom.  Be careful when you stir, it can splatter and burn you!  Makes about 10 half pints.  To process, pour hot into sterilized jars, top with new canning lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.  Remove to cool.
OR put in containers in the fridge, give to friends and keep refrigerated until its gone.
Slurp,slurp.

Vacation Time

Look Out- It's Fennel Man!

After weeks of being beaten down by vegetable production and preservation, we are out of here! Heading to points north for vacation from the sunny south and the constant demands of the homestead.

We'll be visiting Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, Cape Cod and points in between. Camping, kayaking and hanging with friends, eating lobsters, swimming in icy waters and hopefully having a bang-up time.

I'm trying not to let the fact that I am currently experiencing major stomach upset get me down, hoping its just a passing virus? It isn't helping me get packed and D is off to the store for a couple of last minute items including Pepto-Bismol. This medicine should be called Pepto-Abysmal- but if it helps, I'm all for it.

I was initially blaming my indigestion on too many tomatoes having eaten gazpacho 8 days in a row, but I'm thinking its not just that. Ah well. In the past couple of months we have dried and stored about 100 pounds of onions, 60 heads of garlic, I've made 3 batches of tomato sauce, 2 batches of ratatouille, one of minestrone, one of gumbo, pickled beans, pickled okra, frozen green beans, 2 batches of zucchini bread, oven dried tomatoes to pack in oil, frozen about 6 dozen whole tomatoes and last week I just started giving the damn things away in huge bagfuls to anyone that would take them and they are still coming in.

Note to self, 26 tomato plants is too many.

So as I said before, I am looking forward to actually getting away from the garden for a while, I did plant some lettuce, beets and carrots in the past couple of weeks, wouldn't want to come home to no veggies...

Batman will ride as our protector on our trip- I found him in the Current River on my vacation last summer and he's been riding the rear view mirror of my car ever since, warding off evil as I speed down the road. See you in September.