The past week was mostly hot and dry here in Central Missouri. We got one little sprinkle of rain - tenth of an inch maybe - enough to knock the dust down for about 20 minutes.
Kitchen garden is still keeping me busy. I canned 12 quarts of salsa mid-week. That puts a wrap on my canning for this season. Mrs. Augie now has 32 quarts of fermented dill pickles sitting on the bar in the sun room. I think (hope) she’s done with those too.
Vine borers got the last zucchini hill a couple days ago. There are two big zukes left that I’ll collect later today when I pull the plants. Mrs. Augie’s got 40-ish freezer bags (2 cups/bag) of zuke pulp put away so we won’t have a zucchini bread shortage here this winter.
The spaghetti squash vines are starting to look rough but they’re still putting out new vine and blossoms. There are three nice fat squash ready to pick now. I hope to get a few more before the vines fold up for good.
I gave away ~30lbs of tomatoes yesterday along with ~20lbs of cukes. I could save myself a lot of work by pulling up all but one or two of the plants but I like sharing with folks who aren’t able to grow their own.
My buddy Nick is going to thin his raspberry patch this fall and give me the roots that come out. I picked out a spot to put them a couple weeks ago. Saturday morning I hosed it down to soften the ground up a bit, ran the garden tiller over it, sprinkled it with Preen, covered it up with a thick layer of composted stall waste, topped it off with another sprinkle of Preen, and watered it down again. That should keep the crabgrass from going nuts between now and planting time.
I picked the apples from my Granny Smith tree yesterday morning. Got 15 gallons. I gave away 3-ish gallons and processed 4 gallons (7qt yield) into juice yesterday afternoon. The Ninja juicer didn’t clog up with the apples like it did with the tomatoes. I’ll start on what’s left after work today. I’ve pretty much decided I’m going to make cider from this batch of juice. That leaves one Fuji and one Honeycrisp tree to pick and both of those are absolutely loaded. There’s probably 3x the amount of fruit on each of those trees compared to the Granny Smith. Think I’ll peel/core/slice some of those to freeze, make a jumbo batch of apple butter, and hopefully find someone(s) who can make use of what’s left.
Pepper plants are still thriving. I’d like to make some jalapeno jelly, at least one batch of Atomic Buffalo Turds, and a batch of fermented hot sauce before the season is over.
Howard is learning to play fetch. It’s one of Booger’s favorite games and he’s catching on quickly. He still got a lot of the clumsy oaf puppy thing going on and needs some practice on his timing to catch the ball from the air. I didn’t know that hounds would play fetch. Maybe they don’t and he just didn’t get the memo?
Those of us with awful gardens this season are living vicariously through yours! :)
“I didn’t know that hounds would play fetch. Maybe they don’t and he just didn’t get the memo?”
Hounds DO fetch and return the ball. I have winged many a tennis ball off the porch to a waiting pup and after a hard scramble, many of them have returned the ball to me for more throws.
I also have a cat that plays fetch. He is CRAZY about the ‘rings’ off of a gallon of milk, and he will bring one to you, drop it at your feet, and expect you to throw it for him. Of course 99.999% of them end up under the hallway and Dining Room rugs - but I collect them from time to time and Boyd* THINKS he has a whole new bunch of toys to play fetch with! ;)
*He’s a Tuxedo Cat, and supposedly they are VERY smart - but as far as his ‘pedigreed lineage’ goes, he was an ‘extra barn cat kitten’ that we got from the next farm over. ;)