Late October, end of garden

 I started pulling out the last of our garden.  There is supposed to be frost this weekend.  I brought in my 3 celery plants. I have washed and chopped them up for the freezer.  That will help make a couple of soups in the winter. I got more carrots than I expected.  I left a few more plants out there. They should be ok underground.  The last of the cucumbers are inside. We sure had the best summer ever on cucumbers.  The beets are pulled. We will eat these tomorrow.  All the Butternut squash is inside.  I grew at least 14 this year. Gary brought me a pail of apples from our tree and from Al, our neighbors yard. They were great apples.  This afternoon I will harvest my herbs and dehydrate parsley,  basil, Thyme and Oregano.

I will also be hanging my dried beans upside-down in the garage to see if they will continue to dry . Then in a month I will peel off the shells. 

We got 5 pie pumpkins from a neighbor.  I cooked up one and froze it. We dug up all the potatoes but 2 plants and one bag plant. Today I am making more chicken broth. Chicken noodle soup and potatoes, sausage bean soup to share with the Hough's. 

Beautiful harvest days

 Guess what Gary found 

He is quite proud of his puffball. He also got one for Stephanie and Kevin next door. I don't want to cook it but I hope he does.  We cut some off for Bob and Grace McCordy and my mom to eat.

Today I am pressure canning. I cooked up fresh tomatoes for an hour. I ran the tomatoes through the food mill. I canned 5 jars of tomatoes.  It looked like tomato juice.  I also soaked white navy beans overnight and I put 1/2 a cup in a hot pint jar. Added boiling water to 1 inch head space. 

I am pressure cooking in my backyard in my trailer.  The propane stove top works better with my pressure canner since my stove top is glass and it could suction  to it and shatter the glass. Plus it keeps the heat outside. 

The garden is over grown with weeds but still bursting with cucumbers and tomatoes.  I still have a few peppers, onions and beets and jalapeños. Zucchini and celery are still producing.  Still growing is Butternut squash potatoes and apples.  I planted a few bean seeds in July in the front raised garden. They look great now. I hope they grown big before it gets cold. They are a dried beans. So that is a new plant for me.

Sept 1 2026 making Salsa

 

Making Salsa with Jane was a big success. One triple batch medium spicy and second (double) batch very spicy.  

Jane got making veggies from her work at Hagemans Farm stand. I still have tomatoes and hot peppers,  cucumbers and zucchini coming out of the garden. 

This year with all the rain we have had it's been a very prolific garden.  I have been canning like crazy.  

Also I tried making marinara tomato sauce. I water bath canned 10 jars but 5 jars didn't seal. With my my veggies and unsealed tomatoes sauce i made a delicious sausage,  vegetables tomato soup that i took to the Hough's.  I freezer bagged a chili with unsealed tomato sauce and cooked ground beef and veggies. 

I also tried a freezer meal of chopped chicken and butter chicken sauce recipe with homemade crushed tomatoes.  It is so nice to make meals for the future now while all the veggies are being harvested. 

Marinara sauce above 

Things I canned.  I bought cucumbers from Garys sister Lori, I made 20 plus bread and butter pickles and 8 big jars of dill pickles.  Then later I picked 7 more jars of dill pickles with my own cucumbers.  Also 2 jars of dill beans. 

I made salsa with Nicole one day and I kept 4 jars. She brought me tons of jalapeños. 

I pickled 8 jars of pickled Beets with my own beets and a few of Karolina's beets. She also gave me a Butternut squash.  

July 2026

 Its been a busy 4 months. March we took a family trip to Holland to see Garys aunts and uncles. We had a amazing time traveling to Bleiswijk,  Delft haarlem, Gouda, Amsterdam etc. 

I started my seeds inside with the aero garden in April when we returned from our trip.  It is always fun for me to see what grows.

In May Emily had her 16th birthday. The next day she took her G1 and passed.  Happily Keefe was there doing his G1 test at the same time. They both passed. Ashley passed her G1 the next week. 

The girls finished the school year. Emily did exceptional in her marks, Ashley did very good with 72, 72, 78, 78 to complete her classes in grade 11. 

Emily got a job at Dairy Queen.  She has been doing a great job. She gets 4 shifts a week. She is saving up her money for her big School Trip in March 2027  Germany, Netherlands,  Paris. 

Aug 3 to 6 the girls will be taking driving lessons in Kingston with First Route company.  On Aug 11 Emily will be having her 4 wisdom teeth removed. We are staying home this summer.  Aug 22 is our family Kimmett reunion.  We are at Adoulphtown park this year.

MY GARDEN

The lettuce is at the front raised garden.  It was amazing this summer.  We ate tons of lettuce and shared it with Jen, Deb, Lois and a few others people.  We probably got more than 8 heads of lettuce.  We have had a great rhubarb patch also. My kids have been enjoying many rhubarb crisp. Rhubarb cake, rhubarb muffins.  Our snap peas are starting now and the Beets are ready to eat.

In my garden i have 6 garlic heads, leeks, lots of carrots, green beans, Beets, canary melon, Cantaloupe, Butternut squash, peppers ,shititos peppers,basil, Thyme, parsley, potatoes, cucumber, dill, Tomatoes,  onions,  celery! I just planted beans for drying.  We will see how that goes. 

Emily's garden is growing amazing cucumbers.  She has lots of flowers and hopefully lots of cucumbers. 

Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

 My favorite cookie, actually molasses ginger cookies are my favorite but these are maybe tied

https://www.hersheyland.ca/en_ca/recipes/chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies-recipe.html

These always turn out when I substitute regular flour for gluten-free flour.  Yummy. 

Winter storm watch 2026

 This winter has been very snowy. Our chimney had a small fire at the beginning of Dec. The house is fine but we have to replace the Woodstove and put in a chimney liner. We have a guy arranged to do it but it hasn't happened yet so we are using oil to heat the house. Its going to be expensive but it is working well to heat the house. The kids had exams this past week but they only went to school 2 days. Now they have exams moved to this coming week.  The weather network predicts a big snow storm Sunday into Monday.  I expect there will be a snowday on Monday.  

Everyone on media is getting prepared for being snowed in. I am always prepared to be snowed in. I am a bit of a doomsday prepper.  If I was to get advice to anyone getting ready for a week of being snowed in.

For groceries I would stock up and always have on hand. Dried beans, oats, flour, yeast, sugar, canned foods thst you can eat without heat like tuna, fruit. Also I would buy tomato sauce. You can get powdered milk or cans of evaporated milk. Dried soup mix.  Its handy to have small portable stove with propane canisters for back up just in case the power goes out.

I like to buy a whole chicken or turkey.  Cooking the chicken the first day while you still have power. Chicken can be eaten cold with sandwiches.  Remember you can cook up the bones for chicken broth which makes soup with dried beans and chopped chicken. You can get alot of meals out of a whole chicken. If the power goes out, Remember you can keep your chicken in a cooler outside.

Another great food staple is that you may already have the ingredients on hand for is vegetarian chili. I always have salsa, tomato sauce, spices and beans.

I canned a lot of food thst is ready to eat. Mostly all vegetables.  I  froze a lot of sliced apples from our apple tree. We like apple crisp and I always have the ingredients on hand. We also like to make cinnamon buns or regular buns since I have flour and yeast. Also pizza crust for another meal. 

Today I made homemade granola with oats and shredded coconut craisins, Chia seeds, maple syrup. 

Fill a 5 gallon pail of water to flush the toilet if the power goes out. Bring out your candles, board games, books. 

Sept 2025

 Well the kids are back to school.  I am working on bringing in and preserving the garden harvest.  Its apple season now. I totalled up the canning jars in the cupboard.  Here is the breakdown. 

3 jars of crushed tomatoes I did in the pressure canner 

12 jars of bread and butter pickles 

9  1-quart size jars of dill pickles 

8 strawberry jam

4 applesauce 

22 salsa

6 pickled Beets 

3 jars of dilly beans 

5 Rhubarb sauce

1 jars of zucchini relish

In the freezer I did

 6 medium ziplock bag of Houghs corn

Frozen Rhubarb 

Frozen zucchini 

Frozen tomatoes 

Frozen pizza sauce

Many bags of Frozen peeled and sliced apples 

What a satisfying feeling