Winding down

The cucumber vines are dying and will be removed tomorrow if it doesn't rain.  We planted two cucumber seeds directly in the garden bed to see if any plants will grow. It would be nice to have some fresh cucumbers for salads in the coming months.

I started taking jars of bread and butter pickles to the basement but thought I had better take a photo before moving all of them. I canned a total of 23 pints.

Another trial this year was freezing cucumber salad.  I peel the cucumbers, remove the seeds, cube the cucumber flesh and place in a large bowl.  Add sliced onions and sprinkle mixture with salt and mix together.  Cover and place in refrigerator for at least three hours. Heat equal amounts of apple cider vinegar and sugar until sugar has dissolved.  Drain cucumber mixture and put it into containers. Pour cooled sugar and vinegar mixture over cucumbers and leave enough room for expansion when it freezes.  

The pumpkins are looking good but we don't want to pick them too early.  The stems are still green so we will wait a while before harvesting.  This year was the first time we have tried to grow pumpkins and this type is supposed to be a good one for pies. We are looking forward to freezing pureed pumpkin for those fall and winter pumpkin pies.

The Sugar Baby watermelons are growing nicely. We looked up when to harvest these little round beauties but our watermelons evidently didn't read the same article because the one we harvested wasn't ripe.  We will wait a while longer before plucking another one from the vines. This experience will be considered one of the "errors" of our gardening adventure.

The cantaloupes were slow to arrive in our garden but they now number seven.  So far, they are rather small but at least they are growing.  It might be difficult to see this one hiding beneath the vines.  You may have to click on photo to enlarge it.

When we aren't working in the garden, we are working on another project.  We killed the grass on the north side of our house and are planning to have it filled with perennial flowers and flowering bushes that will draw more honey bees and butterflies to our property. We have about half of the area mulched and ready for more plants in the spring. Remember that we are now 70 years old and don't work as fast as we once did.