Well I hate to say this but I think we are slowing down now in the garden front. To which I hate every aspect of that but at the same time I am ready for the slow down time. I know, how rude!!! Ok but let me explain, it has been the year of the tomatoes and it has been a good outcome but I’m more surprised with how much we produced. For some reason I thought we would have gotten a lot more tomatoes than we did but at the same time, we did get a lot!
It’s just a very mixed emotion year and I don’t fully know how I want to feel about it. I have been so thankful to keep up with everything and be able to process as we went. There were a lot of small batch canning going on and I think that is what saved me in the long run. I still have jam and such in the freezer to make but at the same time, we kept up with it all. The jam in the freezer is because I am in need of jalapeños! I also have some strawberries to make more lemonade concentrate but haven’t gotten all of the lemons yet. I gotta get my butt in gear for that. But at the same time, otherwise we have been keeping up just fine.
A lot of our herbs went right into the dehydrator and the elderberry is definitely going straight into the dehydrator. That is also coming to an end. It has been a decently prolific year and I have spent probably 12 hour or more picking the berries off but I was thinking we would have gotten more. I think what I am saying is that I was expecting more but at the same time I am so thankful for what we got. I have to say this felt like a big God moment where he was providing us with what we actually needed and what we could handle.
I do plan to go to the market to see if we can find any more tomatoes to can. We do kinda need some more pasta sauce restocked. I think we have our marinara restocked just fine but the pasta sauce will be a little questionable on if we will make it through the year. So I think we will need to work on that restock still and outsource. I also think we will need to keep an eye out for a few more items to can. We are currently keeping watch on our pickle needs. I hate to say I think we will need to pick up some from the market for that as well.
Honestly I think Jeremy and I need to have a meeting to sit down and figure out what else we need to prep for the winter. The garden is still going strong and we have different things still thriving but at the same time, it has definitely slowed down. OH!!! I forgot to add, we have picked huckleberry! I have absolutely no ideas on what we are going to do with them but we gonna have to figure that out and soon. As in the next day or two, I will need to get my butt in gear and get on processing them! I can’t risk not using them when I completely missed the window last year. We had bad information on when to harvest the berries but this year we figured it out and we are on it!!
Otherwise, we have been slowing down for a while on the herbs and calendula. It’s really about to slow down a lot for us on the garden front. Hopefully I will update y’all soon on if we picked anything up from the market to process!