Garden 2011

Mitchell Garden 2011
Remember all that grass I dug up along the fence last year and all the work we put into building these garden boxes along that same fence? Well turns out it isn't getting enough sun thanks to it being too close to the fence. Duh. So that coupled with the weirdly elongated spring we had here our garden didn't produce like it should have. Our tomatoes just started getting red about two weeks ago maybe?
And now I'm worrying about frost.

This picture was taken a few weeks ago and if you look at the far end you will see the beach umbrella I had protecting our raspberries that have been repeatedly sent by my dad and then killed by yours truly. Desperate times I guess.

Plan for garden 2012 is to tear out all this grass and just have one big garden area. There are so many more things we want to plant--and actually harvest--that I know it will be great. Peter and I are very excited. (We don't get out much:)

This oddly located island of a box ended up being the only one to get good sun all day and in it my rhubarb I have never harvested was hogging all the space and Peter was none too pleased. So I finally got with it. Many dozen rhubarb muffins, and several cakes later I'm wondering why I've been so intimidated to get started on it when it was ridiculously easy to harvest, use, or freeze. Thanks to my Aunt Sally for enlightening me with her mad rhubarb skills.
This stuff is awesome! I'm still hoping for one more harvest.

After seeing my cousin Allison's frozen zucchini in her mom's freezer it finally dawned on my I could do that too. Peter's dad freezes all his vegetables this way and I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before. I hate buying zucchini from the store when I know that at least part of the year I am overrun.

But here is the big project. All my neighbors have had incredible pear harvests this year and most of them are never going to be used so I have this stash that has been ripening in bunches. I canned 6 quarts on Saturday but that was just the beginning. Now they are all ripe and I need to get cracking.

This is my first time back at canning fruit since we moved from California. I got rid of all my cans when we moved (not exactly something you want to drag state to state.) The ones in the stores are all but gone and the ones left are expensive!

On Saturday I drove around listening to conference in my car to search yard sales and hit the mother load. The lady said she had already had several people ask so her sister was driving to Provo to this shed their mother used to store all her bottles in to bring them over and sell. She took my number and said she'd call when the sister returned but I just poked around at a few more yard sales in the area and came back later where I parked myself there to wait. I got first dibs and paid $15 for 75 bottles of all sizes. Cha ching!

So today while my digital thermometer is reporting the temperature outside at a steady 35 degrees and continues to look bleak and drizzly out there I'll be inside watching Masterpiece Theater's "Little Dorrit" and canning pears.

Man, this blog is super-exciting isn't it?