Just Call Me . . .

Yep, call me done in.  Pooped.  T-i-r-e-d.  It's that wonderful time of year when the garden is giving forth its bounty just about faster than I can get it harvested and processed.  But that's a good thing (puff-puff), and what we gardeners hope for all season long.  So I'm thankfully pushing along.

 

Actually, I'm doing a fair job of keeping up with everything (garden related at least).  Except for the weeds that have obviously seen this as their last chance to band together while I'm not looking (or have time to look) and are happily bursting forth.

 

Right now I have a second batch of Blueberry Jam on the stove after having done my first batch yesterday. 

 

I have to confess I cooked it too long yesterday and the consistency is thicker than we like.  Geez, after having made Blueberry Jam for umpteen years, you'd think I'd know what I was doing by now.

 

Also harvested and processed the last of the beets yesterday.  Last year, I kept all of our beets (unprocessed) in the root cellar which didn't turn out really well as it takes sooo long to cook beets that I always found something else to serve as a veggie with our meals that was quicker and easier.  (Emphasis on quicker.)  This year I'll be able to pull a packaged serving out of the freezer, pop the beets into boiling water for a couple of minutes and on the table they will go.

 

I've dehydrated some herbs already but methinks enough has grown back on the plants that another cutting can now be taken.  That's a shot of oregano above.

 

Blooms on the sunflowers are prolific and I have vases of them showing off their cheerful faces all over the house.  

 

I planted a packet of "mixed" this year and they are, indeed, mixed in size and color.

 

This is the tallest one so far.  I just measured and it's 8' tall and growing.

 

I'm particularly fond of this lemon colored one.  Not as tall as it's neighbor, but one of the bigger ones.  The plants range in size from about 3' to that big guy in the first picture.

 

Even the cosmos have decided to bloom, late though it seems to be.  I'm getting a good mixture of colors this year after having hardly anything other than pink, pink, and pink last year.  Same seeds planted this spring so I wonder what causes the wider selection of colors this year?  Is Mother Nature fooling with me?

 

The blueberry mixture is getting close to thickening so I'd better get it into the jars and water bath before it thickens too much again.  Fingers crossed I don't end up with blueberry syrup with this new batch.  "So what's wrong with blueberry syrup?" my husband would say.  If it happens, I'll just call it a win-win.

 

Now, as soon as the jam is done, I'm rewarding myself by spending the rest of the day in my quilting room.  Yahoo!