Hi all, Lori here from lovely McDowell County, West Virginia.

This week has been a pretty busy one with harvesting and preserving our harvest.  First let me update you on the peppers we canned last week. I convinced one of our volunteers to try one and let me know how they were. he said, “oh, they are not hot.” I trusted him and tried one myself. THAT BOY LIED!!! I could light candles with my tongue after just one little ring.

We got all the beans canned and frozen, we ended up with 21 quarts canned, and 25 quarts frozen. We will be harvesting more this week. We have a total so far of 28 pints of bread and butter pickles. We gave our neighbor a jar to try, and he said they were the best pickles he’s ever eaten. Kind of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

This same neighbor gave us two bushels of the grapes that he has growing. After two days of sorting and juicing them, we canned 70 half-pint jars of delicious grape jelly. I had to can the last 9 jars in the dark, the power went out because of a storm and I was at the point of no return with that batch. They all sealed and were filled to the right level. It’s ok to call me the jelly queen.

Our participants from Southern Highlands learned how to shuck and freeze corn on the cob. They did 8 bushels worth, and were very proud of themselves. We blanched it for them and let them bag it. We had 75 gallon bags go into the freezer.

We are harvesting tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash and cucumbers almost daily. We have planted carrots, radishes and turnips, that are sprouting nicely. We harvested a bushel of cabbage, and will have more soon.

The weather has been very cooperative lately, unfortunately the turkeys and crows have not been. The turkeys decimated one of our bean plots, it’s a good thing we have them all over the place, and the crows took out a small patch of corn.

Our two news little chickens keep escaping from the lot. They are small enough to fit through the fence. Thankfully they are starting to get a little fatter and won’t fit through much longer. They will not be happy if one of the vultures picks them up and makes a meal out of them.

Until next time, Happy Growing!

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