The early bird...

I had a burst of energy this morning - not sure where it came from...maybe my lack of energy all week, as evidenced by my lack of posts :-)

By 8:10 AM, I had fed the cats, fed the dogs, let the chickens out and fed them, then it was off to the vegetable garden to weed out a patch to plant some lettuce, green beans and squash in the hopes that I can get a little more out of it before our first frost at the end of October.  Although it doesn't matter when the first frost is because we will just put new plastic over the greenhouse frame and keep it toasty for a few weeks after the weather starts to turn significantly colder.

This year, the squash plants grew, and flowered, but I guess the bees were on vacation or something - no squash grew.  Only one lonely squash that had incredibly tough skin, but we were able to saute it in some butter - just had to cut the rind off.  So, I am trying again.  Worst case, nothing will happen.

When I planted the garden this year, I only had the use of two of the three raised beds.  So, I did not have room for the beans.  But, in reading the packet, it says 50 days to harvest.  Hopefully, we will have enough time to get something from them.

We have been getting a steady harvest the past couple of weeks from the roma and cherry tomato plants.  Never enough at one time to can any of them, but I did freeze some the other day.  After I took the skins off, chopped them up, and simmered them down by half (as per the Ball canning book - which I did pick up after all of your suggestions), I got about 1/2 a tupperware container that I put in the freezer.  At least I was able to put SOMETHING up this year :-)

The cucumbers are still growing as well - get 1 or 2 a week.  Not bad from one plant.  And I dug up the second round of red potatoes - they are the size of new potatoes, which I prefer in the reds anyway.  They have that touch of sweet to them that makes great roasted potatoes.  Someday I hope to grow enough to get us through the winter, but that would require some sort of root cellar or cool place to store them....oh, honey!! :-)

I hope everyone has a great long weekend!