The Summer Stretch

This time of year is special. It's that 4-6 week stretch where there's tons of sun and 90+ degree cooking-hot Summer days. A pre-dinner dip in the pool becomes a given and, if you stand still enough, I think that you can actually HEAR the garden growing. The harvest is daily and plentiful. Here's a shot of today's take:



There's my boy snagging a cuke to nibble on. Here's one way that I know that it's Summer...I find these all over the house:





You'd think that I've got mice but, alas, it's just the kids grabbing a little garden goodie to munch on before supper.

I'm going to try my hand at canning tomorrow. I have 50 lbs of cukes that need to be processed. I've done lots with freezer and fridge preserving in the past but have never used a bath canner. I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to put some food on our pantry shelves that will last for a year or so.
I've read the books, I've looked over the recipes....I'm going to add my own twist and hope for the best.
The crazy thing is that...let's take cucumbers for example. They cost about $.75 each on sale at the grocery store. I've got about about 24 cucumber plants. I payed about 10 bucks for all of them. They are putting out around 15-20 cukes a day. The savings that you realize by growing stuff yourself is insane. It becomes practically free. All told, I've got about 100 bucks, out of pocket, into my garden...and, when it's all said and done, If you had to pay retail for all of what we harvest, you're looking at easily $2,000-$3,000 worth of stuff. In this economy....how can you not grow something?

Hope all your gardens are heaving and all your crisper drawers are full.

God Bless.