Still picking vegetables!!

Even though we are approaching the end of August and have been picking and canning since mid June, the backyard garden is still producing vegetables. Check out the peppers, hot and sweet banana and jalapenos, plus throw in a few late arriving tomatoes and we have more vegetables to eat and process. 
All the vegetables are in the last stages of producing except the peppers obviously and the zipper peas we planted in July.  They are doing very well  and we should be picking peas for the first time ever in another week. 
That's exciting!!

August dog days

Even though we are in the midst of the dog days of August, we are still somewhat active in the backyard garden.
The tomatoes are finished producing except for a few plants that are hanging on despite the succession of 90+ degree days. It's that time of the summer where we have plenty of bed space to plant. It's tempting to get started again but we know it's best to wait a month or so before we begin the fall planting season when the weather cools a bit.
We did put up another 7 jars of pepper jelly though. Peppers should produce until the first frost and in the past they thrive in cooler weather like the 70's and low 80's.

Bringing the heat

No not the temperatures outside (although the dog days are here) but the pickled jalapenos and hot banana peppers. As you can see we harvested a good number of hot bananas and jalapenos this morning and turned them into 9 pints of pickled peppers. Just what we do, especially on weekends during this time of year.

More peppers and figs

Even though the season is quickly winding down and posts to this blog are less frequent,  we are still harvesting figs and bell peppers, banana peppers and jalapenos in great numbers. We made more of our delicious strawberry fig jam today and also added to our pepper jelly numbers as well, 14 more jars! The picture of the figs is what was left after we had already made 5 jars! Needless to say, we canned another 5 jars with these.

Cantaloupes

Check out the cantaloupe we grew in our backyard garden. Planted in May from seeds, we were happy to harvest a few considering they were something of an after thought. ( We have some extra space over here where I don't think anything will grow,  what can we plant? Let's try cantaloupes.) 

It's that time of the season

It's that time of the season where the garden has produced most of what will be picked. It's time to start cleaning out the beds which just weeks ago were green and growing. We are picking peppers, figs, and a few tomatoes. The zipper peas we planted in the bean patch are very healthy and will be fun to watch and hopefully pick in a couple of weeks. The peppers will produce till the first frost so we have several more months of picking them. It will be a great year for pepper jelly too.