July Garden Update

It is always disappointing when you work so hard on the garden and nothing happens overnight. You hear of people eating from their gardens and you are at a standstill. One day I'll be there too....sigh....

So we went away for a week and came back to this! There may be some hope for me 😍

Front deck

I had lots of cherry tomato plants and lots of pots. So what does one do? They sure do grow tall. If all the Blossoms grow a tomato, we will have lots. They are like candy, so good!

So I read online how to put pool noodles on the tomato cages to help protect the plants. I am trying it this year and it doesn't seem to make any difference yet. It does make make for an interesting conversation!

Here we have spaghetti squash and tomatoes

These planters are awesome. Lavender in the center and it smells so nice.

I think this pot is too small for the tomato plant

Next year must plant twice as many marigolds in the tub. Looks so cool

Pumpkin and tomatoes

More cherry tomatoes and beets

We took down the window from the back of the box and look at the nests! 

They were not happy and Brent got stung... 😟

Raspberries are doing well 

Harvested garlic and am trying peas, cukes and swisschard here.

Strawberries will be dug up in the fall as the soil is full of weeds

Tomatoes and squash in the tires

This group is not doing so well

Buttercrunch lettuce is so good here

Potatoes in the center surrounded by Brussels sprouts

Sweet potato

Corn and beans in the center

Sweet potato

Spaghetti squash

Red cabbage and leeks

Spaghetti squash

More pots on the back deck with very tall cherry tomatoes. Even the hanging buckets are doing well. Must learn the difference between basil and peppers. I was cooking and needed some basil so I stepped out to pick some and noticed after that I was holding the top of a  pepper plant! Lol...they do say that you should top pepper plants to help them grow.

The two buckets on the right seem to be getting too much sun

Garlic harvested one month sooner than last year

....and this was the view in the evening....so magical...

Can you believe this weather?! Crazy!

B

Cherry Juice

Our harvest from the garden. Approx. 2.5 kg of cherries. The raspberries and strawberries went into the freezer and the cherries will be made into juice.

The cherries were a bit wormy so I chose to pit them and clean them really, really good. This took forever to do.

My DH bought me a steam juicer for Christmas and today is the first time trying it out. I watched some utube videos and read the instructions front to back and got a good sense of what is supposed to happen. So cool!

It comes in 3 parts

The bottom which holds the water...I filled it with 4 1/2 qts of water

This is the middle part which collects the juice

...and the top which holds the fruit. There is a glass lid that goes on top.

I let it steam for 1 hour and then poured it off into jars. Got to watch that you don't point the end in the wrong direction!

So this is what I got in the end and it tastes soooo good. Thinking I need to go find me some more cherries!

I froze what was left in small batches for adding to smoothies. The flavor is definitely "watered down" but should work.

Update****

Went to the fruitstand and bought 20lbs more! This time I only rinsed the cherries and threw stems and all into the pot. After an hour I kept adding more cherries on top until all was steamed. First time using the new campstove...love it!

 7 1/2 qts later...ran out of time so will do the waterbath tomorrow.