A Few Days of Big Projects.

So last Friday, Aug 6th, my mom and I went and picked three 5 gallon buckets of garden beans. We were lucky to find a local farmer who was willing to let us go pick them for free. I was hoping to get some from my garden but after two failed attempts of planting them, they look pretty weak and I am not sure we will even get a single bean from the plants that remain. So we got up and headed out to pick them. It took about maybe an hour to an hour and a half to pick.

Then she had to leave and go to Boise so I was going to be on my own canning all these beans by myself. I was kind of depressed about doing all this work by myself. But luckily my sister said that she would come and help me, because she wanted to learn how to do it and she just wanted to hang out with me and Logan. I will say that I really appreciate all her hard work in helping me with the beans and with Logan :)! So we sat and snap beans for a while and then got them washed and put in the jars. We sure had a good little helper to help wash the beans and play in the water.

He loved it and for those of you who dont know, this kid loves the water, especially playing in the sink. He helps Grandma Jake with her dishes even when she really doesnt need or want his help. He always pushes a chair up to our sink and plays for a while just filling a cup and dumping it into another dirty dish. So this was the perfect job for our little helper.

Although there was two of us working on beans it sure took us forever. We started at 8:30 am and finished at 11:00 pm. So about 14 hours of nothing but straight canning beans. This sure was a long day. It took forever because we had only one pressure canner and it took about over an hour for the pressure to come down between each batch. YUCK!!! I will have to say that it was well worth it, but I had to convience myself that it was. I really over did it and it took me the next two days to recover from it. But I am glad to say that we were able to get 82 pints (of which I was able to bring home 60). I am so glad that I only have to can beans one day a year. So until next year :)!

Nothing better than home canned green beans!!!

The start of getting my food storage stocked for this year!

My next big project I did today. I had a few hours because both Matthew and Logan are asleep so I decided that I needed to weed my garden. It was starting to look like a weed patch and I wasnt sure what was growning in it any more. And I absolutely hate when my garden is weedy, so it was definitely time to do some well needed work. I enjoy weeding because it is really relaxing for me to be out in the garden. So here is our lovely garden:

Finally a garden and not a weed patch :)!

So we planted and replanted 8 cucumber plants and this is the only sad little guy that we have left. So I am sad to say that I will not be canning pickles this year. I guess I have a lot of learning on how to grow cucumbers to do. So I will try again next year.

Not sure what is going on with my carrots but hopefully we will get some to can this year.

Peppers

Potato Patch

Sad looking green beans. (Matt doesnt want me to pull them).

First patch of tomatoes.

Second patch of tomatoes.

Yummy Corn

So overall I cant complain about our garden. Most everything is looking great and we are going to hopefully have a good canning season. Some stuff will have to wait until next year. But thats okay.

Now I cant wait until next week. My sister will be here and I have several projects that she is going to help me with. So I will have more projects to report on. Loving that I am keeping myself busy but somedays it takes it toll on me. But the life of a wife and mother, theres nothing better :)!