Vegetable Gardening

[NoNo]

On Sunday, I went peach picking. I have 30lbs sitting in my fridge, awaiting their jammie fate I still have a few zucchini that I'm figuring out what to do with. Went to a friend's last night for dinner and we exchanged goods. I got a bunch of Roma and grape tomatoes from their garden, they got some peaches and eggs from my aunt's chickens. I wish we could go back to the bartering system

[withm]

I canned 13 pints of spiced peaches, 6 pints of brandied peaches, and 4 of pears with white wine. I'm about out of pint jars, but have lots of 1/2 pints still. If I could still get some cherries, I'd love to do some cherry preserves.

[Jolt]

I just picked a lot of cherry tomatoes, broccoli and green beans from the garden this morning. When picking the green beans, I found bugs everywhere! They're sort of rust colored with black spots, looking somewhat like ladybugs but I caught one eating one of the beans. I also saw some prickly-looking yellow larvae on the leaves--ick! So, I went online to try and find out what these bugs were and found out they are Mexican bean beetles. I sprayed the plants with this hot-pepper concoction that we use to repel bugs from some of the other plants and we'll see if that helps. Maybe I'll go out later with some gloves and a container of soapy water and pick off as many of the bugs as I can find. Here's a link to info about the bugs in case anyone else is dealing with these guys: http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/she...eanbeetle.html

[NoNo]

This is what we canned the other night. 6 half pints and one pint of peach jam, 6 pints of spiced peaches (my goodness that syrup was delicious!), and 4 pints of sliced peaches. There are a few more of each coming. I plan on going pear and raspberry picking, and then it's tomato and apple time!