Messing around in the canning pantry today as it is in the low fifties
outside. Got out my empty canning jar boxes and filled them up with all
the clean jars standing around on the shelves and made a little more
space for "stuff." Don't have anything to preserve right now, just a few
cukes coming in plus sweet chiles and eggplant, a very few grape
tomatoes. Expect cukes, chiles, and eggplant to be gone to compost in
another month.

Cabbage, broccoli, leaf lettuce, and radishes all doing well and the
chard in the front flower bed is perking up with the cooler weather.
Probably be harvesting some tomorrow just for our dinner. That chard was
planted in February if I remember correctly and has been producing a
mess of greens every week since then. First time we've actually had
chard last into and through the summer. I believe that because that
patch has shade from noon until nightfall it has had its life prolonged.
The full sun chard in the back garden is long gone even though it
produced bigger leaves and was finally pulled last month due to decline.

Probably going to be nothing to put up until next spring when we hit the
blueberry and blackberry farms nearby. Still haven't managed to find a
place to pick canning pears, may have to go visit friends in Louisiana
next year. Maybe pick a hundred lbs or more of Kiefer canning pears for
jelly, pear sauce, and canned pear slices. I do miss all the "free"
fruit we used to get from friends who inherited trees from long gone
parents and didn't even use the fruit. Oh well, when you live in an area
where the oldest houses date back seven years you have to expect there
would be no fruit trees around. I suspect our young pear tree in the
front yard plus the fig and kumquat trees in the back yard are the only
ones in several square miles here abouts.

George