Pumpkin Hammocks and Beautiful Jars

I know that I have mentioned many times how our pumpkins
have gotten wild and crazy. Well I have a few vines that are growing up the fence around the garden. Now one of them has produced a nice little pumpkin. The way those little tendrils are already stretched and tight I know that they most likely would not be able to last until this falls pumpkin harvest. I happened to be reading a few days ago about a certain cantaloupe named "Lupe" who is sporting a rather nice pink bandanna for some support in Thyme to Garden Now. I loved the idea and thought that it would work perfect in this situation. Now our high climbing pumpkin has a pretty blue "hat" as Lizzy says, I like to call it a nice little pumpkin hammock. Thanks for the great idea Minji.


I was also asked for some pictures of the blue green jars that were my Great Grandma's that I used in my dill pickle adventures. Here are some of them. In this light they look mostly blue, but up close they are just dazzling. You are able to see all of the fabulous little air bubbles in each of the jars. The pickles that have been canned in these jars really are a nice bright green color. It is pretty cool.

Words from Me - Lizzy

I have been trying to figure out what Mommy has been doing typing on the computer every so often and she told me it was blogging about our garden. Seeing as how I have become Mommy's little gardener (that's what she calls me) I asked if I could give it a try and she said yes....so here goes.


I should probably introduce myself a little better. My name is Elizabeth or Lizzy for short, although my Great Grandma calls me "Beth" sometimes. I'm 2 1/2 and I'm the oldest of twins (only by a minute but I'm STILL the big sister.) I have really started to like this gardening thing and want to help Mommy out a lot. It all started when she was planting all the seeds into these puffy little dirt pocket things that grew when you put water on them. How cool is that. My cousin Tristan helped me and Mom. We were good at pushing the seeds down in the dirt.


Once we actually got to plant them in the really cool garden that Daddy built for Mommy I gave everything lots of love. I kissed all the garlic and onions before we put them in the dirt (oh "soil" Mommy says it is only dirt once it is all over us, it is soil when it is in the garden. - that is some old time joke between Mommy, Auntie Greta and Grandma Sandy, not really sure what that is about. Maybe when I'm older they will explain it.) I was pretty bummed when Mommy pulled all of the garlic out of the garden and most of them were the same size as when I kissed them and put them in the soil. I was not happy and neither was Mommy. Mommy said that the onions didn't size up either, I'm guessing that means they are small.


I love to go to the garden everyday with Mommy, I know where everything is and check on all of the pumpkins and watermelons and tomatoes. I love to see everything growing. Right now my favorite things in the garden are the green beans. I always have to eat some every time I go down there. Yum! Adin and Elle like them too and Mommy calls us her 3 little bunnies, I guess we sound like bunnies while we are munching on the beans.

Well, I have to get going... Mommy wants me to take a nap. Ha, like that is going to work. Hope you enjoyed my words and maybe Mommy will let me blog again.

~Lizzy

Productive Pickle Day

Today was a productive day I believe. My 17 lbs of cucumbers are now 12 quarts and 11 pints of dill pickles. All jars successfully sealed also. Today I felt a bit of connection with my history as I canned with my Grandmother's Boiling-Water Canner and my Great Grandma's green jars. They are the coolest things and I'm sure that they aren't made anymore. Scott asked why I was using them if they were antiques and I told him that Great Grandma Anna probably would be a bit sad if we didn't use them. She was a very no nonsense practical person. She even cut a chunk of netting out of her wedding veil because she needed some netting for something. I think that she would be happy that I'm using this old stuff for everyday uses. I am going to be darn careful with those jars though.

Peanuts Violated

So last night I went out to start digging into the reclaiming of the garden after the weekend and I discovered that my peanuts (who I had been babying and praying would produce) had been violated. Over the weekend something small got into the garden and ate all of my peanuts. Not the plants, those are still nicely planted, but there is a small trench all the way around every plant and beautiful peanut shells all over the garden. I am very sad. We so hoped to be able to make peanut butter this fall if we got any and here they actually grew peanuts and now they are gone. Dang Nabbit!

Today the girls and I are going to dive into another round of making pickles. Hopefully this batch turns out better then the first. We have 17 lbs. of cucumbers to pickle.

I have been searching for a good spaghetti sauce recipe so I am able to can up my tomatoes in it. Our family loves spaghetti so that is my plan for the tomatoes. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be great.

Here is the pics I promised of my start of the tomato harvest and my very sad little Adin after he kissed the tree. He is doing much better today.