Beans are DONE - and some rain - finally!

Last of the bean picking for this year!

I finally got to finish picking the shell beans this past weekend.  The "velour" beans are same and were crowded with weeds, so picking them took quite some time.  I got them done Sunday morning, before the rain really started.

Now, to shell them all out!  UGH

More harvest

I got out to pick the strawberries, summer squash and tomatoes before we left.  Good amount of the tomatoes came from the volunteers!  Not sure how we are going to preserve these - some will go to FDer for sure, but other might be frozen for FDing later?  Or maybe I will make some chili base for eating now?  We will see.

Family reunion!

Saturday we went over to my cousin Patsies house for the family reunion.  We took coleslaw, some zucchini muffins and some of my concord wine.    Here are some pics:

Panoramic view

Panoramic view

Paul's grove of black walnut - like 35 years old! 

The puppies stayed in their cages for the most part.  We did take them out on leashes to go walkies.

There were a good number of dogs there so taking the cages was a great idea.

We had a good time and reconnected with some cousins and their kin.  As usual, I ate too much!

BEANS!

Yep - picking more beans.  Slow slow process with the "velour" beans.  Fortunately (in this regards anyway) the weather has been so dry that the grass hasn't grown much, therefore I did not need to mow.   I think I got all but 1/4 of the "velour" beans picked.  Here is a final picture of the patch as I left this weekend (its a panorama - the garden is not curved!)

I did pick some crops - the strawberries, the zucchini, brussel sprouts, and tomatoes:

You Have to zoom in to see the berries - but they are doing quite well considering the drought!

Good number of nice looking berries there!

I put the brussel sprouts and the zucchini in the same tray - sprouts cover most of the zucchini - but they are there!  About 6 of them I think.  I let the sprouts go too long and they started sprouting !

Tomatoes are less than last week but still doing well.  Especially since we aren't looking to preserve a great many this year!  These will probably go into the FDer.  Some of last weeks went into freezer because the freeze-dryer can't keep up!

Big tree came down!

The big tree that was hung up out in back of the house finally came down!  I am not sure when it happened - maybe last Friday.   I still need to clean it up a bit.  There are some widow-makers hanging on in the trees yet.  Kind of letting them sort themselves out before I go in there to clean!

Broke out a section of this tree too.

Nice little bridge across gully!

Not sure if this bug damage was before or after it broke.  Woodpecker damage too.

Widow-maker!

More harvest stuff - shell beans, tomatoes and squash

Shell Beans

I planted 19 45-foot rows of shell beans this year.  The patch was originally unprotected (no fences).  Deer eventually found it and ate the leaves off most of the plants!  I eventually did place a baited electric fence around the patch that did stop the deer (either tha or they found better things to eat!), but the damage was done. Many of the beans did not fill out - they didn't mature.   Anyway, we started picking the beans the last weekend of August - we got about 1 bushel of the Accelerate beans from 4 rows.  This weekend I was by myself but able to dedicate most of my time to picking so I got another bushel and a half of the accelerate variety.

The rest of the "Accelerate" bean harvest

I started in on the "velour" variety but found some issues.  The Velour bean is much smaller and evidently matured earlier.  Also, the weeds in the velour side of the patch were much more prevalent so picking was very difficult!  I essentially was pulling EVERYTHING!  Except for some volunteer locust trees which I think I will try to transplant next spring.  I got only a tiny amount of beans, shown below.  I still have most of the velour section of the patch to pick.  I hope the weather doesn't turn rainy next weekend!

"velour" bean harvest to date.

Elderberries and crab-apples

I found more then a few elderberries left on the bushes - at least enough that I didnt feel good leaving them there!  So I picked these last elderberries:

There is about a half-gallon of them after picking off the stems.  Very ripe!

I mowed what was tall in the orchard - there is a draught so not all the grass needed mowing.  AS I did I noticed some crab-apples were ready to pick - so I grabbed them.  Not sure what I will do with these though.

Crab-apples - this is whole harvest!  Of course, these came off a tree that I thought would have died this year!  

Tomatoes and squash

I harvest the volunteer tomatoes in the front patch as well as the planted tomatoes in the sweet-potato patch.  I got about 35lbs!  We are going to be drying some of these, but I don't think we can dry them all before they go bad.

From the planted tomatoes

From the volunteer tomato plants in the front patch.  The squash are from the  squash plants - go figure!  The last of the corn harvest is in there too - not sure if it was worth it though.

I also harvested the zucchini and even one of the butternut squash from the far patch!  There are lots of butternut squash getting close.  IDK what I will do with all of these!  I hope they keep well!

Strawberries keep coming!

Decent strawberry harvest considering the time of the year and the drought conditions!  I am definitely going to have to buy more everbearing strawberries!

More FDing - tomatoes

After the corn was done I started right in on the tomatoes - they were going bad fast!  I cut them up into chunks and loaded the FDer trays full.  Not much to say except that they take up a LOT of space when done this way.  I placed most into half-gallon jars and a few into some quart jars.  I wouldn't be surprised if the FDed quarts equaled only a pint of tomatoes when rehydrated!

Freeze-dried tomatoes, vacuum sealed into mason jars with O2 absorbers

I'm a freeze-drying fiend!

Corn and Tomatoes

I did another freeze-dryer run of corn and tomatoes!   I cooked the corn on the cob, cut it off and put it on 3 of the FDer trays.  I used the 4th tray for tomatoes.

BEFORE

AFTER

(well, its all of the corn but only a few tomatoes)

I added O2 absorbers to jars and vacuum sealed them

Elderberry long term storage (LTS)

I finally got into the mylar bags and O2 absorbers that I purchased recently.  Also, with the new vacuum sealer that can handle the mylar, I attempted to move the elderberries from the 4 quart mason jars to one, one gallon mylar bag.  It worked fairly well!  I got a seal on the bag with a setting of 6 seconds on the heater for a 5mil mylar bag.  I might up this to 7 on the next run.

Mylar bags and O2 absorbers

MAKE EXTRA SURE THAT YOU SEAL THE UNUSED O2 ABSORBERS!  I wasted $13 worth of absorbers (about 70 absorbers) because I forgot! :(

O2 Absorbers

Mylar vacuum bag sealer

Vacuum sealer!

BEFORE

AFTER

Should be good for 25-30 years now!