Harvest Time…

Our garden has produced a decent amount this summer, which is a vast improvement over the last few years, when results have been anemic at best or non-existent at worst. We planted lettuces, cauliflower, peppers, spaghetti and butternut squash, and salad tomatoes. If our squash can manage to fight off the powdery mildew that has afflicted them after the endless rain and damp this summer, it will be quite a boon to me! I love both kinds but they are rather pricey at the grocery store. I have been so grateful to pull cucumbers off the vine for our lunches nearly every day…the tomatoes are almost ready. How yummy it will be for my little (and big!) snackers!

I appreciate dearly the help to my grocery budget the garden has provided. I love knowing, too, that no dangerous herbicides and chemicals have been near them, as sensitive as Elliana is to those sorts of things.

I am praying that as my grocery budget stabilizes thanks to Trim Healthy Mama, I will be able to put a bit by for harvests of a different sort. I’d like to be able to solidly replenish my pantry, which has been rather down to the dregs over the summer…well…for quite a while now. We have a really nice Mennonite bulk foods store a short drive from here (their prices seriously can’t be beat by even Amazon or the national whole foods co-ops like Azure) that carries the things we use so much of in proper bulk sizes. My plan is to get at least 50-75lbs of oatmeal, which we go through like water. 25lbs of gluten free flour. Sugar. Syrup, at least 4-5 gallons. Kidney beans. Great Northern Beans. Pintos. Rice. Oh my goodness. I can’t decide if we go through more rice or more oatmeal, I swear. (Large family problems!) With that, I could shop my pantry nearly the whole winter, and my grocery budget would go down even further. It will be lovely!

What are your ‘harvest’ plans, friends? Do you know how to can? I’d love to learn, but there just hasn’t been any time for it until now. How is your garden doing? Do you have a garden?