Ur doing it wrong

As much as we love LOLCats, it's not always fun to feel like we'd be in a picture with that title. When it comes to gardening, we feel like we are quite often. And, looking on the bright side, sometimes, we're not. We canned pickled okra last night (learned a lot), had a good time, and in the end, we've got pickled okra. Yay. We also canned pickled cucumbers. Kind of blew through the learning curve on the okra, so the cucumbers went much more smoothly. I've learned a couple of things about canning this week:

* Only can with someone you love.
* You can pack more in that jar. Really.
* Okra floats. (Well, duh. We knew that. We just didn't put that together with the packing and the liquid until it was too late. And I mean that literally -- it was nearly midnight.)
* Don't make it harder than it has to be. (Applies to a number of things, actually.)
* All Other Kitchen Rules Apply (don't touch the pot without a pot holder, clean as you go to keep your blood pressure down, you get to eat the mistakes, and lick the spoon... whether you want to or not, is another story)

It's been a good gardening season, this year. We have also discovered a new superpower for JackJack , um, I mean Jase. Or, rather, we've found a way to direct his powers for Good. He's very good at pulling things apart, at tearing things open, at throwing things. He's quite detail oriented, and can mangle things for hours on end. So, he's the new bean sheller!

Next year, we'll wait until the beans are dry in the pods before we harvest them, like the professionals suggest. This year, however, we're eating the daylights out of fresh black beans. Soft, sprouted, semi-dried, and partially neglected. I figure by August, we will have figured out at least three completely new ways of eating these things! And, it'll keep Jase busy for the rest of the summer.

EmBaby gets in on the action, too. She prefers the washing and the picking, for actual work, but who doesn't love joining in on the kitchen activity?

This is our third year gardening, here. We've killed a lot of plants. We've grown a lot of weeds. We've tilled significantly more linear feet of soil than we've actually gardened. But, we've also expanded the garden significantly, widened our range of produce, and actually managed to harvest enough food to make a dent! We've figured out where to put what , developed some new trellis schemes, and nailed down the price on Japanese Beetle bounties. Now, to figure out a rotation plan that will work - one entire corner of the garden seems willing to grow only okra, and 18" tall corn stalks.

Sometime this week, I hope to put up pictures of projects the kids have been working on: new compost bin, chicken infirmary, shooting gallery, and American Revolution re-enactment field.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy