Here is how I have spent my holiday thus far…blackberry picking with the boys while Josh had to work. Pickings were slim so I wasn’t able to do as much as I wanted. The boys were very disappointed there wasn’t enough to make cobbler!

We came home and I worked in the garden. I had to hunt things down for my harvest. We had another heavy rain yesterday so many plants were hanging over. The cucumber plants are hanging all over the pepper plants. The melons are all over.

Here is what I managed to pick this morning…

Today’s harvest includes tomatoes (golden nuggets, grape, yellow pear, zebra cherry, full size zebra), a MASSIVE zucchini, a cantaloupe, blackberries, cucumbers, tomatillos and a pepper.

What to do with it all? I canned two and a half jars of cantaloupe jam with vanilla (a first time and I must say it is SUPERB) and two jars of spiced blackberry jam.

I also made a pot of cherry tomato sauce. We had some earlier in the week with pasta and it was wonderful. It is cooling and waiting to be bagged and frozen.

Then after all that I was able to put the yellow pear tomatoes and cucumbers in bowls. Have you seen these before…they are Mexican Sour Gherkins. They are the best cucumbers ever!! They look like dollhouse sized watermelons but are really a bite sized cucumber. We MUST plant these every year now! I will pickle them at a later date, I’m exhausted!

If you want to know what boys do while their mom is harvesting in the garden, here is a clue….

Should you care to see more pics of these muddy boys swing on over to Dalrymple Clan Adventures.