Garden Update for 6/ 27. 09

We have had a great gardening week! Things have been so busy around here, I am late on the update, and I never did a Bible Bee schedule... I suppose I'll get to it this afternoon, maybe.

Last week we canned 16 pints of peach jam. I think one of them is eaten already. ;) Doubt they'll last until next year, but they'll have to since we missed the blueberries. Last year our blueberry jam was SOOO good. We'll miss it this year.

We pulled the last of the peas and found that there were really carrots growing under them! So we had peas and carrots one evening at dinner. It was wonderful.

I figured our cabbage had grown as big as it was going to grow, so we picked all that on Thursday. We got over 50 heads, but they are mostly baseball to softball size, not the large ones you buy at the store. There are still plenty for us. We may make some sourkraut, but also will eat it in some minestrone soup tomorrow evening, and make lots of cole slaw. I can also slice it and freeze it for soups in the winter. I just love the crunch of cabbage in soup.

Our broccoli and cauliflower was a flop. I won't try cauliflower again, but I plan on trying a fall crop of broccoli. Our broccoli this year was planted in the back garden, in just plain ground, but grew no fruit. It was great foliage... knee high and beautiful, but not a head of broccoli to be found. I heard this would happen if there was too much nitrogen in the soil, but that was not the case in that garden. They are now fertilizing our mulch pile.

We got the last of the lettuce for the season. I cannot wait to plant it for a fall crop!

We re-planted corn in the broccoli/ cabbage row, and we planted green beans in the pea row. These are both a little late, so we will see how they grow. It's worth the experiment! We have not gotten a huge earlier crop of either of these.

Our big news is that we have some green peppers, banana peppers, jalapenos, and a TON of cucumbers. I am going to need to search for some innovative ways to use them up. Literally I probably got 20 cucumbers today... they were not there on Tuesday... stay tuned to see how we use them all, or if I see how many people I can bless at church. ;)

So if you have some way to use cucumbers (I am not set up to make pickles yet...) just let me know. I have a feeling I'll be putting them in EVERYTHING.