Since the last post, we’ve zoomed past the 509 lbs reached last year, by almost 200 lbs. We’re now at 703 lbs and are still picking items from 30 categories on our updated figure on the Suburban Ton page. How high could it go? A lot depends on the weather and the stamina of the plants. We had a frost watch one colder night this past week, and I spent much of the evening clothes-pinning sheets up and around everything I could. I expect I’ll have to do it again this Saturday evening. At this time of year I am kind of happy to see the garden wind down, as I’m also ready for a rest.
At the beginning of the season I said I’d be trying a few new things, and I’ll get back to how those worked in another post soon (e.g., chicken wire stapled to pallet trellis for cukes, potatoes in coffee bean sacks, trying strong-smelling plants to ward off Japanese beetles, etc.) But this weekend it looks like we may be busy canning some more! Here is a picture of canned basil sauce and zesty salsa we’ve processed most recently. The red camel shaker in the picture is not really something I own but I lifted it from a friend’s picture of her weekend canning project on Facebook. She has been fighting a battle with cancer, and Carlisle the canning camel gets into her shots often. She appreciated it turning up in my own posted canning pic, and I post it here partly out of whimsy, because we’ve adopted him as the official mascot of the yet unorganized, but no less visionary, Minnesota Canning Crew. And, it’s here partly to me as a reminder to pray for my friend when I see it. But, back to the camel, it appears that Carlisle may be drooling over a little hot pepper on top of Old Smokey.
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