The Modern Victory Garden

There are lots of jobs to do in the heat of summer to prepare for the coming winter.   I tend to focus on the garden production - making sure the extra produce is preserved for future use.   My husband generally focuses on the routine household maintenance and repairs, particularly those that need attention while the weather is dry and warm.   Lately, he has been busy wrapping up the deck staining and preserving project.   Another project we both try to get done around the end of August (or first part of September) is getting the wood supply in and cleaning the woodstove chimney pipe.   We have a local individual whom we buy wood from each year. Since we prefer to stack it ourselves we have it delivered as a "dump" and then take it from there.   This evening when I got home from work I found that our annual supply had been delivered.                                 

Since I am really ramping up on garden preserving work, and my husband is still working on the staining and painting projects, our daughter has volunteered to help us out with the wood moving and stacking project.   Collectively we all pitch in where our talents or time are most needed and everything seems to get done eventually.   We still have the chimney cleaning to do, but it can wait a few weeks while we wrap up these other items.                                                  

It has warmed back up again and the tomatoes are responding.   Lots of ripe ones this evening and the Viva Italia sauce tomatoes have a flush of fruit that is breaking color.   I picked almost six pounds tonight of Legend, Siletz, and Stupice tomatoes.   I am setting them aside for a day or so because there are quite a few more that will be ripe tomorrow or Friday and I think I should have enough (if I just wait a day or so) that I can process a full canner load of quart jars of diced tomatoes.   When the sauce tomatoes are ripe I will really be in business!               

I have an unusual pumpkin in the squash patch that I thought I would share with you this evening.   It is a Siamese twin in that two pumpkins are growing from the same stem and vine, fused together.    I have had many odd shaped squash and pumpkins in the past, but this mutation is a new one for me.

The remaining pumpkins are all quite normal and are in various stages of growth - from relatively small and green - to this large one that is really getting quite orange already.                                    

I think we are going to enjoy lots of pumpkin pie, spiced pumpkin bars, and custards this winter.                                      

The ever-bearing strawberries are back producing again.   The second round of fruit production is always less robust than the initial late June fruiting.   To add to the strawberries we also have blueberries from our container plants that are ripening, as well as the blackberry season that is getting underway.                         

I hope your week is going well and that you are getting some time in your gardens too.