Canning - canning - oh and more canning

The blogging is suffering.

Canning this time of year takes precedent.

This week has been green beans, corn, blackberries with relish yet to be made.

Last week was green beans, beets, blackberry jam and cucumbers/pickles.

On top of canning you need to include the items we are eating fresh that take time to dice, slice, and otherwise prepare for eating.

Oh yes, did I mention I dehydrate food also? This year it is zucchini! They taste like chips :-)

Horrors I don't even have any photos of the completed work but I do have one photo from last week showing the beets before I processed them.

So blogging will start up again, just not much before the frost hits! :-)

 

60 pounds?!?!?!?!?!

WOW. Who knew these things could get so big??? I purchased the "giant" watermelon seed this spring on a lark but I really didn't think they would get huge. I figured it was a marketing ploy and I fell for it. I half way thought they wouldn't even sprout!

First we planted the seeds very late and the package said they had a long growing season. STRIKE 1!

Then we had the hottest, driest summer in forever. The weather people called it SEVERE drought. I don't think it rained after the first of June... STRIKE 2!

Lastly it was "crack gardening". That means planting seeds in the cracks of concrete on an old hog lot and letting it grow. I didn't even know if that was going to work.  STRIKE 3!

Well I was wrong. (See I can admit it hubby!)  It worked and watermelons grew. This is the result.

That is my foot in the lower left for a sort of comparison of the size of this thing.

This thing is only 10 pounds less than the quarterback on my son's football team!

I put the yardstick in front just so you can get a feel for the length of the watermelon.

OK, so technically it was 59 pounds. I am still amazed. We could have had a 100 pounder if it had actually rained! Anyone wanna come over for some watermelon?

I guess this will be my last gardening post for a bit as we have nothing left to harvest.