leave for a few days and you can really see the changes in your garden.  there were  tomatoes in the lower garden ready to be picked.  we filled up a small laundry basket with them.  i probably should have weighed the basket seeing how the handle was bending.  i am going to guess it was @ 10lbs.  not quite enough for me to bust out the canner, but enough to cover part of the table and start bagging some up for friends and neighbors.  i think this weekend i’ll either can them as whole tomatoes or i will make a marinara/spaghetti sauce.  the orange icicle paste tomatoes have yet to ripen, but when the do, i’ll make ketchup…mmm, orange ketchup.    

i did use last years pesto sauce, this years basil and the yet undetermined tomato on our pizzas this evening.  the crust is whole wheat, not burnt, i swear.

i’ve had some success with morning glories this year.  i came across an heirloom variety last september … ‘grandpa otts’. sagan and alice were helping with the black raspberries (in the background).

lastly, today is our wedding anniversary.  we have known each other for 22, been together for 20, and married for 10.  you bet i got me a cake!  it was the same type of cake we had for our wedding.  i only asked that they put ‘happy anniverary’ on it.  imagine my surprise when i opened the box and saw this…

day on the farm=trying to wear out 2 boys. dug potatoes in the morning, then the onions afterwards. had lunch. boys swept the barn, while I got all ocd on the potatoes. definately by size, definately. fed the cows. picked peaches. tractor ride while mowing. picked some flowers. picked more peaches. dinner, shower, and boys asleep before 7:30. If it takes all that to wear them out, I’m in trouble.

i sent an email to rareseeds.com (which is where i order my heirloom seeds) last night. after going through all my seeds, i am convinced that the jersey giant packet of seeds i ordered, and planted, were miss labeled.  still waiting to here back from them.  i do like whatever is growing, so maybe at least i can get them identified.

sort of kinda purple tomatillos.  they are not really purple at all.  the purple on the top of the pile was picked 3-4 days ago, then started to turn.  not sure what is going on with them.  there are also 2 purple jalapenos in that bowl.  more black than purple. oh well.

copper maran eggs are still small, but they are getting darker in color.

rosita eggplant.  love it!

a little of everything.  tomatillos (not purple), violet jasper, the orangish tomato is the west virginia mt. princess, not so purple jalpenos, and a green zebra ( which is definitely yellow and green).

we had a very nice rain/storm earlier, so i suppose i won’t have to water tomorrow.  moving on…in case you did not know, ( and why should you), chickens don’t care if its raining, thundering, or lightening out.  here’s chicken jomo… out and about.  although its not actually raining when i took the picture, i swear she’s in the same spot she was when it was raining.  you can tell she been eating.  look at her breast area (crop area)…its HUGE.

and while looking at her from the house, my son noticed a sunflower, poking up from above the tomatoes.

they’re everywhere… although, something has been eating the heads off…

you can only take so much grilled zucchini and zucchini bread, and then you just wish your plants would die.  mine were looking a little sad until this last ‘storm’ which blew the plants over, and now they are regrowing/reblooming exponentially. but, in the meanwhile, my dad gave me two huge zucs from his garden.  what to do…what to do?  i quartered them so they would fit into the food processor, cut the seeds out, and then shredded the lot.  i froze 4 quarts and then made double chocolate zucchini bead with the rest.  chocolate makes everything better!

tomatoes are starting ripen.  i thought i planted all paste varieties in the lower garden.  i picked some of the jersey giants yesterday, but they are not suppose to look like the photo below.  now i need to figure out what these are.  (another mistake)

the soys beans are ready.  the plants had fallen over a few times due to the (very few) storms we had this summer, but, they still did really well.  we decided to harvest half of them this morning.  only half you ask…the boys were helping and by the time they got to the third plant, all the fun was sucked right out of it.  we will, and by that i mean i will, finish picking the pods off the plants tonight. we’ll be eating edamame for a while. the rest i will blanch and then put them into bags for the freezer.

the benefit of the soy plants is the great job they do at fixing nitrogen back into the soil. i usually cut the plant stalk at the soil line and leave the roots where they are.  with the boys helping, they were all about pulling the whole plant out of the ground…then removing the nitrogen fixing nodules from the roots and throwing back to the ground.

woo who…it has finally rained enough over the last 2 days to make a difference. (its still raining now…happy dance).  the cucumbers and squash all seem to have powdery mildew (thanks to the no rain, high heat and high moisture we have been having for weeks). they’ll be on their way out soon.  so, i decided to make pickles from the lemon cucumbers that are still producing.