Today I put up five jars of peach jam (peaches from my neighbor, Pat), six jars of dill pickle relish (yuk!) for Mr. H, and seven jars of pizza sauce.I've been meaning to update you on the sick zucchini plant. I sprayed it with cornmeal tea and gave it a double dose of fish emulsion, and it's looking fine now. I even got a zucchini from it yesterday. I still think I had infected seeds, as my neighbor planted two hills from the same package and hers looked bad, too. She sprayed hers with a commercial fungicide, and used the fish emulsion, but hers still look awful. In the meantime, just 30 days ago, I planted another variety of zucchini. They're not only blooming, they have at least four zucchinis on them already!
New zucchini with its babiesThis was supposed to be our last day of 100 degree weather. The forecast is for temperatures in the high nineties for two days, and then a plunge into the mid to high eighties! It will be wonderful to be able to get out to the garden again......without passing out from the heat!
At this point, I might pass out from the heat if it EVER hits the
ReplyDelete80's-which we're supposed to get near the end of the week-YEA!!!!!!
Sorry you've had so much heat this year. I would have gladly taken some.
I've always wondered if you can just get "bad seed"....I guess you can. Glad your other zukes are doing good.
Look at all those jars of yummy goodness!! Pizza sauce, huh? Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteOoooh look at those 'cans' of goodies! When I grow my Spring garden, I'll be looking back over your posts for recipes. :)
ReplyDeleteYou're going to have lots of jars of yummies to take back with you!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to hear that your having a break in that hot hot weather!
I wish our temps would go back down, been 95-100 the past week and next 7 days look the same. My beautiful Hokkaido squash had to be ripped out last night, bacterial wilt. That was going to be my first squash grown & tasted! I will have to try it from the farmers' market. I couldn't chance it spreading to the other raised beds. Next year I know to plant it away from everything since it grows like wildfire! Pics to come today on that fiasco.
ReplyDeleteI like my dill pickle relish recipe better than regular old dill pickles! We used up the last jar of it about a week ago and we are fussying at the cukes because they are not producing yet and we NEED our relish! LOL!
ReplyDeleteIt has really cooled down here already. In fact, I shut the greenhouse up last night because my peppers are just getting ready to start ripening up the first ones and chilly nights will set that back too much. Profound difference from the prior week.
The canning efforts look great.
Yuck to dill pickle relish? Yum. I love it. No one else in my family will eat it however. I'm glad you have some good zucchini coming on.
ReplyDeleteThat pizza sauce looks good! I was looking forward to doing some sauce this year, but I don't think I will get enough at one time from the garden and the tomatoes at market are quite pricey.
ReplyDeleteGlad your zuc has taken a turn in the right direction!
Nice recovery on the zucchini. Reminds me to get out there and stick a couple more yellow crookneck seeds in the ground -- I loved those babies and the mildew got 'em.
ReplyDeleteYour pantry is going to be a blessing later on! Do you take it with you to Arizona?
Wow, I'm way behind in answering comments today! If I miss anyoe, lease forgive.
ReplyDeleteSue, I can't imagine cool summer weather. Our record high for Aug 4 was 113. Seems like we always have 100-110 weather the end of July and the first week of August.
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Ribbit, the pizza sauce is from one of those Mrs. Wages mixes. I'm trying them all out this year to see if we like them or not. They are good for smaller batches (6 pounds) of tomatoes, and are canned in a water bath. I put the pizza sauce in half-pint jars, which should be just about right for a large pizza.
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Hiding, I guess I should post the recipes I'm using. The only things I'm not using instructions from the boxes (jam and the Mrs. Wages mixes) are sweet chili sauce, bread & butter pickles, sweet pickle relish and dill relish. And today, pumpkin pie.
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Toni, we won't take it with us, not enough room. It will be waiting when we get back in the spring.
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Erin, I feel your pain. Most of my squash suffer fro powdery mildew. I just hope they have time to mature before they expire.
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KitsapFG, I checked your website for a dill pickle relish recipe, but didn't see one. Care to share? I'm not one to judge, as I really do not like dill. Mr. H and my neighbor both said mine was good.
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Daphne, The "good" seed (meaning the one that was $1.79 a packet)was the "bad" seed. The one that is just now getting zucchini, and loaded with them, is the 20-cent packet from American Seeds!
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Kelly, that's why I'm using those Mrs. Wages mixes. They only take 6 pounds of tomatoes and make 5 pints. I get a lot of tomatoes from my garden, but only 6-8 pounds at a time that are really ripe enough to eat/can.
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Stefaneener, this year we're taking the car instead of the pickup. Mr. H says the pickup is having some issues that are minor around town, but he'd hate to be half way to AZ and have something major happen. So we'll be making room for the two dogs and the rabbit, our clothes, the TV I brought north with me last spring, and coolers for the animal's food. That means we'll leave the freezer plugged in and the canned goods on the shelf, and leave it all here. We're trying to sell our AZ property, so with any luck, we might be back early this year.
Isn't blistering hot weather the pits? Try living in Florida when even the sand curls up and dies in the heat - LOL. Those jars o' goodness sure look yummy! I don't like pickle relish either, but when it's homemade I become more interested. It'd be good in some tuna salad maybe!
ReplyDeleteOkay, Granny. Make me feel bad for not planting some kind of seeds in the empty potato space. I could be eating zuchini if I had been on the ball. Instead I'm looking at empty space and maybe a seed or two of lettuce. I am so not up on this succession planting. Maybe it's the weather. It just hasn't really felt like summer. Looks like your high temps are coming this way. We're supposed to get temps over the next few days in the 100s.
ReplyDeleteCheryl, I hope you feel really bad about letting that potato bed sit there empty! There, were you properly admonished?
ReplyDeleteI planted spinach today, and lettuce and bush beans last week. I still have some open space, but I don't want more lettuce just yet. I wonder how much spinach I can use? I guess I can freeze it if I have too much. That's it, I'll plant more spinach!
Kate, I LOVE the sweet pickle relish, just cannot stand dill. I had the sweet on a burger tonight and it was yummy! Mr. H had the dill on his, and he likes that. That's just the way it goes in our house...I'm the sweet one, he's the sour puss ;-)
ReplyDeleteI have one huge zucchini, the leaves are monsters. It flowers then the flowers fall off! What do you think is wrong? I did get the two first blooms to become fruit, then nothing.
ReplyDeleteZoey, there are male and female blossoms on the zucchini. Look at the flower. If it has a long, straight stem it's a male. If it has a rounded swelling just below the blossom it's a female. Usually the plant has a lot of males to begin with, and no females. These flowers will all drop off. If the female flower drops off, that means she wasn't pollinated. I've noticed my zucchini bears in waves...it gives me a crop, then stops, then starts up again. By the way, those male blossoms are edible. Just Google "recipe squash blossoms"!
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