Last of the harvest...

We have loved our garden, but are also relieved to be done making multiple trips out to it. For our final visit, we harvested all of our carrots along with several bags of tomatoes and peppers. Thank you God, for blessing our small efforts!

The carrot on the right inspired Ben to act like Pinocchio

Isn't it weird and warty?

Another great harvest!

Caleb with all that we brought home today from our garden visit....want some???

Caroline and Daddy!

Ben found this LARGE cucumber in the garden today...we let it get too big!

The boys scouting out some green beans from what is left

We took home several bags full of veggies again today...we are nearing Fall, as you can probably tell from the picture. The corn, green beans, and sunflowers are on their way "out."
Today it was chilly out, only in the 50s and cloudy. The garden is coming to an end...

Ben and the kids locking up the gate...we wonder how many more times we'll be back before its all over...

Harvesting an abundance

Caroline harvesting green beans! It is so great for the kids to see where our food comes from and how it grows!
Joshua loves to help water our crops...sometimes a little too much. Notice further down in some pictures that will follow that he doesn't have a shirt on...it got soaked!

Our little "helper"

Caroline holding some of the tomatoes we picked tonight!

That's good looking corn! Or as Caleb would say, "its a honkin' one!"



















They are amazed that it "looks just like corn from the grocery store!"











Joshua got to pick one too! We each did and we took them home to eat with our dinner tonight!


















Kids excited about Green Beans! Wow!

Caroline investigating which corn husk she'll pick

When we got home they all sat out back to get the corn ready to eat!

They each wanted to leave their "handles" on to eat with! This was some good sweet corn!

More of Mom's tomatoes! :)

The corn was delicious!

These kids are crazy about corn!

Did I mention crazy???

Check out this bucket of green beans

Joshua did :)

Freezing tomatoes

Today I was finally able to preserve a big batch of our beautiful garden fresh tomatoes! It feels so good to have this done and have a stock pile started in the freezer! I blanched the tomatoes for about 30 seconds and then placed them in an ice bath. Just as promised in the books I've read, the skin just slid off (for the most part- the greener ones required a bit more work). Then I squeezed them to remove juice and seeds (to make thicker sauce) and then sealed them up in freezer bags after labeling. Its going to be fun to use our own tomatoes and not have to buy canned for awhile!

We've got CUCUMBERS!!! Time to PICKLE!!!!

Caroline's version of pickling...just stuff the cucumbers in the jar!

What she was doing was intriguing her brothers

It's starting to look like we've got pickles! Yum!!!!

Here are our cucumbers cut into spears

Thankfully Joshua was able to entertain himself with the kitchen gadgets while I made pickles

He rather enjoyed himself
(it was a rare treat that I allowed him to be in this drawer, but sometimes its just worth it!)

Time to fill the jars- they smelled yum!

HOMEMADE Dill pickles!

And we have pickles! Good for up to 3 months...if they last that long :)
BTW- we've since eaten 2 of the 3 jars

Some of the veggies we've been picking

Some of the Gigantic cucumbers

Grandma told me about ripening tomatoes in a sunny window- its working!
(I've been picking them a bit early so I beat the bugs)

The Garden Is Growing Like Crazy

Caroline, Caleb, & Mom showing a HUGE cucumber...its practically too big to use for making pickles, which is what we are really wanting to do, we're learning.

You can't really tell from this pic, but these cucumbers are out of control...we've got 4 mounds of them and so far we've harvested 18 cucumbers!

Dad realized today that we desperately need to thin out all the carrots! We've been overlooking this task until now- there's just been so much to do

This process took awhile...but good thing Dad has helpers