Canning, Canning, Canning

My husband loves to garden. Since we moved into our house he has had a garden. He loves it, and it gives him his little bit of farmer I think is just down right genetic! His whole family gardens and he is really good at growing stuff- he seriousluy makes it look effortless. Why does everything I touch seem to die? This year he promised the garden would be smaller. It's instead bigger, but we are getting a lot out of it:

This year we planted: carrots, sugar snap peas, 3 different kinds of tomatoes: cherry, roma, and beef steak, zucchini, cucumbers, ever-berry strawberries, herbs: chives, oregano, basil, dill, cilantro, oh- and green beans. Our green beans, cilantro, dill and cucumbers tried to die off this year. Luckily my neighbor sent her extra cucumber sprouts to us this year and we have had another productive year.

For Father's Day, I bought Jesse 2 dozen canning jars and a granite canning pot of his own. You'd have to know Jesse to understand that this wasn't a practical presents, but a really AWESOME one. And he has gotten such great use out of it.

So we are canning the tomatoes and a couple jars from todays picking's for pickles. He gets such a joy from this, and it's such a wonderful feeling making something from a seed and turning it into something you can use later. Oh, such pioneers are we! My grandma Judy would be so proud. My dad and mom gave us the thumbs up that Jesse got Grandma Judy's spicy dill recipe down pat. I think so too.. it's yummy.

Next year we are contemplating making raised beds. Probably will help on the weeding and the current location of our garden is getting shaded by our now very giant and beautiful willow tree. We also want to put in an apple tree in the side yard as its getting flooded easily over there and would provide cover to the bathroom window and shade for the dogs. Not to mention the stuffing of some YUMMY apple pie and I could make some dehydrated apple slices (a favorite snack of mine).

So looking forward to next summer and how our plans will turn out. We have a lot of idea's for home improvement projects- but we will have to wait for now. I love dreaming......... and creating!