What did you do in the garden today?

[aliciagold]

I started repainting my fence, if that counts. Also I cleaned the garden a bit, manually water few of my delicate plants, tap washed all small basil plant

 

[pennyJo1960]

I have considered it we buy Heinz as a matter of Costco has it I have grown to use just mustard on most fries salt only .. my brussle sprouts still need a bit

 

[chickmom3941]

Hi everyone! It's been a long time since I've been on here. Been working the night shift full-time for the last 1.5 years, which left me with almost zero time for myself or any outside interests. My work schedule drastically changed about a month ago, and I just now feel like I'm getting my life back (4 days a week off work!). One of the things I'm really excited about is getting back to BYC and chatting with all of you great people on here! Anyway, as far as recent happenings in the garden, I think the most noteworthy thing is that I noticed the young pear tree I planted about 3 years ago looked bad - the leaves being eaten by something to where the leaf veins were showing, and they were turning brown. Upon careful inspection, I saw what looked like baby slugs all over the leaves. After googling, I found out they are called Cherry or Pear Slugs. They are the larvae of sawflies, and as their name implies, they love cherry and pear trees the most, but will go after other fruit trees, as well. To make a long story short, one of the easiest and cheapest ways of dealing with those critters is to dust them with wood ash, which destroys their slimy coating and causes them to dehydrate and die. So guess what hubby was busy doing the other day? Yup, got some ashes from our wood stove and let the pear slugs have it. They looked dead the next day, but I'm going to keep a close eye on the tree to make sure it's alright.
Sorry to be so longwinded - hope I didn't put anyone to sleep!

 

[WthrLady]

Welcome Back!

Grabbed another bucket of tomatoes (not quite ripe) from the garden. I SHOULD be able to make and can 1/2 pint jars of ketchup on Saturday.

If I gave you a list of all the crap I got into today, you'd drop from exhaustion like I want to.

Lovely DRY air day out today, and I cannot get enough water to top myself back off.

Which means the garden will need a drink tomorrow, so I'll fertilize it as well.

The pacas need a pedicure, but I'll wait til DH can hold them while I trim. So Saturday or Sunday.

Lots of odds and ends.

Hope everyone is doing well.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Great to have you back with us then @chickmom3941

 

[chickmom3941]

Thank you both - it's great to be back! I looked at some of the recent posts on here, and I see that you all have been busy canning & cooking up a storm! I haven't done any canning yet this fall, but did manage to can some rhubarb pie filling last spring. The other day I picked quite a few tomatoes, and I'm planning on using some of them for BLT's and also making a really good Italian salad recipe I found several years back (it uses a lot of tomatoes). It's so tasty, and home-grown tomatoes just take the salad to another level. Will probably make that tomorrow...YUM!

 

[WthrLady]

Im looking forward to the great sales on canning supplies! This is when I stock up for next year. I have tons of jars. What I'm after are lids. I should grab some more standard rings as well.

Anyonee else use tattler lids as well as ball lids?

 

[pennyJo1960]

Yup I have both use them allot love the wide lid jars

 

[karenerwin]

Im looking forward to the great sales on canning supplies! This is when I stock up for next year. I have tons of jars. What I'm after are lids. I should grab some more standard rings as well.

Anyone else use tattler lids as well as ball lids?

I asked for some Tattler Lids a couple of years ago for Christmas. I used some of them when I made my pickle relish this Summer, but a lot of them didn't seal. Maybe I didn't get the rings hot enough.
After that I just used metal lids. But I will give them another try. I like the idea of reusing them.

 

[karenerwin]

I picked a pound of green beans, a lot of cherry tomatoes, 2 small cucumbers ( the bloom ends were starting to go bad) , 1 small green pepper, 1 small egg plant, lots of basil and some parsley. Pulled out some of the cucumber vines that dead, dried and done.
I dried the basil and parsley ( in the oven). I canned 5 pints of pasta sauce ( I had 6 pints worth but only 5 jars, so the last went into a quart jar, half full, in the refrigerator.)

I have a few more tomatoes to put up but I have to get more jars first! Oh, and I still have to use the red delicious apples and the pears. Also I blanched and froze the green beans from today. I also planted the last 4 Draconia Spikes by the fence line down near the mail box.
For dinner we had seasoned pork steaks, green beans (from the garden) and sliced apples (that I had put up Nov 2017, they've been sitting unopened in the refrigerator. They smelled fine, looked fine and tasted fine, so hopefully they were fine!).