Harvest Time

Last week I cried when my garden froze. I have loved my garden; it has done so well this year. We must have super soil here at our new house, because everything that survived the initial period, did really well. We got 14 pumpkins off of the only pumpkin plant that grew. Our cherry, pear and grape tomatoes were awesome. The grape tomatoes looked like mini romas because they were so big. We picked about 2 1/2 gallons of them the day before the frost hit.

Nathan loved his job as pumpkin stem cutter.

We planted our pumpkins too late, so they aren't totally orange yet. Oh well, we love them anyway. Sarah is always a good helper.

We got this many banana squash off our lone squash plant. Some of them were huge! Unfortunately, almost all of them got nipped by frost and won't keep through the winter, so I need to cook up and freeze what I didn't give away.

Nathan, our entrepreneur, cut corn stalks and he and Sarah sorted them into bundles. We had way more than we needed for Halloween decorations, so they set up a corn stalk stand and sold the extra bundles.

A month ago, our long awaited corn was finally ready. It was so yummy- I could eat it every day! I have to say though, the corn was a big let down. We anticipated corn all season. When it was ready, we had it for dinner a few nights, then picked the rest to freeze. It was gone way too fast! Next year we'll get our garden in earlier, and plant MORE CORN every few weeks so we have a constant supply.

Like I said, I think our soil must be awesome (it certainly wasn't anything that I did!). This onion is almost as big as Abby's head! I've never grown good onions before.

I had so much egg plant that it was insane. This one was huge too. My kids aren't nearly as sad about the garden freezing. Nathan is relieved not to have zucchini on the dinner table every night. I'll have to post some of my favorite zucchini recipes that I discovered this year.I love being somewhat self-reliant. I remember as a kid, when everything on the dinner table was from the farm. I love the satisfaction of opening a jar of something I canned. I do most of my canning after the kids are in bed. When I'm done, I drift off to sleep with a grin on my face as I hear the popping sound of the jars sealing. I love that sound! As my mom used to say, "we eat what we can, and what we can't, we can."

I really haven't done very well at canning this year, but I've got a lot of it to do soon before my produce goes bad. I'm up so late right now because I've got diced tomatoes in the pressure cooker. I have to admit, the pressure cooker still scares/intimidates me. It looks and sounds like a rocket is about to lift off as it builds up steam. Of course I've had to call my mommy to make sure I was doing it right. Next, I've got pears and peaches to do. I have yet to pick the apples and grapes. I just really don't know how to do it all! How did my mom do it? I think she never slept. Ah well, we do what we can. Good night, and here's to listening for popping sounds.