Vacation is over so back to work this week!

Ok, I didn't go any where but had lots of company this last week.  All my husband's brother's & sister's came for a lovely visit.  We also had our oldest son with his soon to be wife visiting us from California too.  Had a wonderful but much to short visit with all of them! 

Took a quick walk through my garden today that has been mostly ignored except for things I ran out to pick fresh last week.  Cucumbers are coming on hard now so will be a daily pick to stay on top of them.  Got 3 beds of tomatoes bearing now and 3 beds of green beans needing picking.  I have a full bed of garlic ready to pull and 2 beds of carrots ready to pull.  I'm pulling the peas now also for next years seed.  Got most of one bed done yesterday so will finish that bed tomorrow and maybe tackle another if I have time.

Now I need to decide what to plant as I clear these beds.  I want to plant another bed of garlic this fall and hope to plant several beds of gluten free oats this fall for spring crop next year.  But I will try to plant broccoli and cabbages for a fall crop and more carrots too.

So now is the crazy time of the year where I'm running full tilt harvesting and canning.

Hope you are getting much from your garden too!  If you don't have a garden try to can produce you can get at framers markets.  Keeping up your skills is very important to do!  Creating a food storage is very important also as food prices continue to climb.

The drought this year is going to really make prices climb.  Only 23% of our soy bean crops and the corn crop is expected to do even worse.  Our fruit crop that survived the late hard freeze is dropping most of it's fruit before it matures.  I just got 2 bushel's of peaches from the Amish and they said there wouldn't be any more due to the fruit drop and drought conditions.  Our personal corn crop looks fairly good but failed to put on corn as it didn't get water at the right time.  I'm hearing from farmers all over the mid-west saying the same thing.  So lay in what you want now before the prices sky rocket this fall/winter.   Many cattle producers are selling off their herds because they have no food to feed them.  Meat is cheap now but this winter it will be very high.

Take care and hope you are busy canning too!
Cherlynn
brchbell@yahoo.com