To The Surbiton Manor Born

It is harvest time. One thing the illustration above does not show is the large number of football-sized zucchini that are making their appearance. While I love a purple pole bean, I won't exactly be heartbroken when they slow down. This week's harvest newcomers are tomatoes. We've just pulled in the first few. The vines are laden with many more to come.  This has necessitated some innovations on the "how will we eat all of this" front. Made a double batch of zucchini bread yesterday. Made more refrigerator pickles. Gave away more cucumbers. Vacuum-sealed more pole beans and tossed them in the freezer. It is time consuming. But this is what it is all about. All that work raising the seedlings, the planting, the weeding. Time to reap what was sown. And we are getting some delicious stuff. The weather has been wet, hot, and humid. Over the past few days we've had about three inches of rain, and more storms are on their way tonight. It doesn't really rain, so...

It's just past mid-summer and the harvest is beginning. Probably the most prolific vegetable at the moment is the purple pole bean. We have pounds of them. Fortunately, they make a good stir fry. Zucchini is presenting its usual challenge: catch them when they are small, not the size of baseball bats. We've had mixed results. Fortunately zucchini fries are delicious.  We've made sweet pickles, dill pickles, pickled banana peppers.  We've harvested beets and a few sprigs of lettuce that managed to grow. The tomatoes are on point to begin. At this point, we are contemplating our options.  So far, we've always been able to eat what we grow (or give it away) without the need for canning. But our freezer is finite. Do we start canning? Is vacuum sealing enough to preserve the food until we can get to it? Do we need to buy a small chest freezer?  I have taken this coming Monday off, in part to process some of the food we're producing. As the tomatoes go from green to ...