It Starts - Produce That is

Yellow squash, zucchini, pickling and table cukes out of the garden this morning. Already have 2 gallons of old fashioned dill pickles fermenting away in the kitchen. In spite of the damage from the heavy rain and wind we are starting to see some stuff to eat. Not to mention the corn is tasseling so there could be corn for the fourth and yes tomatoes even sooner. All this rain has caused a lot of vine growth but tomatoes are there and growing so it looks like we will have a garden after all...ugly as it may be.

The rain and wet has kept me from getting all the planting done as I still have pumkins and more beans to put in as well as beets and chard. Just have to be patient. It'll get it done and the pumpkins donn't actually have to be planted before the middle of July to get a crop by Halloween.

Also harvested the potatoes and the garlic. The garlic was planted last fall and the nice mild winter produced a good crop which is now drying in the green house. The potatoes were a whim this spring and I just planted a few in some unused space in a raised bed but they still managed to make about a bushel...or more than we can ear before they go to the bad. I'll pass the excess around to friends. My great grandmother used to keep potatoes from one summer until the next spring and planted the remainders for the new crop but she had a nice big root cellar (actually two) and she kept beets, carrots, turnips, onions, apples and other assorted things for months at a time. That's also where she kept the pickle barrels and kraut crocks and it enabled her to have them pretty much all year around without actual refrigeration. I can still remember the experience of reaching down in that pickle barrel for a big old pickle.

Off to work in a bit but there was gardening done today.