Fall Harvest

This fall, we have been busy, busy, busy! We did a garden for the first time this year (our old house never really had anywhere that would have been good, and last summer, we were doing all of our ripping up the north side of the backyard, pouring concrete, building a shed, laying sod, and building the garden space). This year we just did tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash and peppers (but we didn't get the kind Scott wanted). Our garden has been AWESOME! We have had tomatoes and zucchini coming out of our ears! I have NO clue how many bags of frozen shredded zucchini I have in my freezer, on top of the MANY loaves of zucchini bread and zucchini cake I have made! As for our tomatoes, we have eaten TONS and loved every minute of it! They have also helped make salsa, and we have bottled 24 pints so far, with MANY more to come! We also went down to Scott's grandparents house and picked pears. We brought home TONS and ended up bottling 62 quarts (14 quarts one evening, and 48 another evening because they had ALL ripened at the same time!) I did peaches last year, and only have 3 more quarts left, but they are so blasted expensive and from some of the people I have talked to, they haven't been very good this year (really wormy and not a good taste) so I don't think I am going to do any peaches. I am so glad I have grown up with a mom who has shown me how to bottle and preserve food, and continues to help whenever I have questions! Scott has been awesome! He helped with ALL of the pears and tomatoes, and would have helped with the salsa, but my mom and I did that while he was at work. It is so nice to have my storage room stocked up again between all of the canning and stocking up on the case lot sales (and still having stuff from the dry pack cannery)! Nothing like seeing shelves full of food!