The last couple weeks have been really busy for me. It's also been extremely boring for the kids. You see, the garden has been producing more than we can keep up with, so we've been busy trying to preserve what we can. Last weekend we spent our Saturday pickling jalapenos. When you have a wheel barrow half filled with jalapenos, you know it's going to be an all day process.

The potato bugs have started spreading onto other plants so I've had to pick almost all our eggplant and quick make meals that we can freeze because there isn't much else you can do with eggplant that won't have it turn out mushy. So we'll be eating quite a few eggplant parmigiana and pasta meals in the near future.

One of my favorite canning veggies are the green beans. Not only is it my favorite way to eat them but I don't have a pressure cooker, which is required for canning beans. So it becomes a social event as I help my mother-in-law pick her beans and we combine what we have to get enough canners for both of us and she pressure cooks them. (Dusty and Rosie both helped us with different steps this year which was really nice.)

My least favorite, and a first time canning item for me, has been preserving the tomatoes. I was slowly skinning and freezing them as they came but the tomato plants are in full harvest mode now and there was no way I could keep up. It was getting to be really overwhelming. So Dusty and I took the plunge and bought a tomato juicer. The kids were thrilled!

So far, I've cooked down about 50 lbs of tomatoes into a sauce and I have to do that yet again to get through what we've harvested so far. Worse yet? It's just sitting in my fridge as we haven't even canned them yet. My fridge is stock full of tomato sauce and juice and I don't foresee an open day for Dusty and I to actually jar them until after our big party this weekend.

Somebody hold me?

The good news is that we should really save quite a bit of money on our grocery bill this year. I've got at least 8 meals prepared in the freezer along with the foods we've frozen and canned. Here's hoping the garden stops soon or at least slows down enough to just enjoy as we go.

P.S.

I didn't even mention the pepper jelly, salsa, beets, brussel sprouts, roma green beans and stuffed peppers I've worked on in the last month or so. Do you see why I'm so overwhelmed now?