Okay, Okay... but there is a reason I have been gone!

I know.  Hasn't been much daily raving from this frugal maven.  Huh. Seriously.  It has been a little looney tunes around here.  The garden is coming in full force and so I am going back and forth between weeding and garden maintenance and picking/canning.   Here are some examples of day before yesterday's offerings

That was the first load, then I went back out and got

That is Corn, parsley, Lima beans, pinto beans, 3 bell peppers,and a few potatoes(oh and our cat Clapton.lol).  I also picked another pound of blueberries and 6 1/2 pounds of onions.  The corn looks like this after all the shuckin and jivin

I have to say this is the first year I have been able to shuck corn and not have any(and I do mean any) bad places to remove.  Granted there were some kernels near the top of some of the pieces that didn't fill out, but they were all at the top and so easy to remove.  This was my prettiest corn ever.  This has since been blanched and stuck in the freezer.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of the Lima beans shelled.  Apparently I planted colored Limas.  While they are pretty right out of the shell(pink,purple, and white), once canned they look an awful lot like pinto beans.  I made sure to label them.  Pintos are like that too.  Really pretty out of the shell then brown when cooked.

In addition to this days offerings, I have put up 31 quarts of tomato sauce, 20 pints of salsa, a batch of peach jam, a batch of mixed berry jam, and a batch of blackberry jelly. Onions are done for the season.  Only got 6.5 lbs, but this was an experiment to see how it would do.  Haven't decided if I will do it again.  I came out on top, and they didn't take up a lot of space so I might do it again. The tomatoes, peppers, beans, Lima beans, corn, and peanuts aren't done yet for the year.  I can't wait til I can post a final tally of all my garden produced.
Now , I want to share something else with you.  Take a gander at my watermelons

See that vine climbing all over the place?  There are two watermelons in sight.  If you are wondering what is around them, those are t shirt sleeves left over from making "yarn" out of old t shirts.  I used them to make a melon hammock.  These watermelons are free.  They are volunteer plants from watermelon seeds I planted last year from a store bought watermelon purchased the year before. Very proud of these little buggers.  Well you won't believe what I have now.  I was out reclaiming one of my peanut beds.  The weeds were getting pretty tall surrounding the beds.  So off I go to pull them up.  Here is what I uncovered

Yep.  Two more volunteer watermelon plants.  So I pulled out the weeds from around them, lay some pine straw around them, gave them something to climb on and a good drink of water.  I have done all I can.  The rest is up to them.  Hmm maybe more watermelons for labor day...or Halloween.  Lol.  Last but not least I will share the progress of my little pinto bean babies that I grew from pinto beans bought at Aldi.

Their germination rate was much better than the pinto beans bought at Sams club.  So Sams club is for cooking and Aldi is for planting.  So that is why I have been off the air for so long....Well part of it.  Through in the everyday stuff and you pretty much have it.  I promise I will be better at doing this in the fall when things slow down a bit.  So until next time dear people!  Have  great day!