Cherries Are Done

I was sure procrastinating about dealing with the cherries.  I found a million other things to do (all legitimate tasks) and kept putting it off.  I think it's all the pitting that made me shudder!  In order to avoid pitting cherries, I went out into the garden and picked more beans...

stripped beds, did laundry, cleaned the bathroom, tidied the bedroom.... you get the idea.  I was really avoiding doing what I needed to do, lol.  Do you do that, too?

By mid-day, I realized that it was now or never.  They were going to go rotten if I didn't get them put up so I grabbed the bull by the horns and dug in!

First, I made a huge batch of cherry blueberry jam (my new favourite)

and then I decided to give canned cherries a go.  I figured that having some canned in very light syrup would be really nice for making desserts in the wintertime.  We never have cherries in the winter so they will be a welcome change come the snowy months.

I see that the water level really dropped in my quarts of cherries.  I am new to pressure canning, having only water bathed foods before now, so perhaps I'm not doing something right.  If you have advice for me, please share!   I hope it all tastes ok, because it sure was a lot of work to get them prepped for processing.

The garden is coming along fast...  there are Fava beans just about ready to pick

the cabbage needs to come out because the cabbage moths have been all over it laying eggs....  The chickens will LOVE that treat!  I'm going to plant ONE row of fall brassicas there today and cover them up with my row cover.  Hopefully with only one row, the cover will be wide enough and not let any moths in.

My cucumbers are finally growing!  It's likely way too late for them to reach maturity.  Our weather was not favourable for cukes this year...  they just kind of sat there doing nothing until a few weeks ago when the weather warmed up.

This is a heritage variety of corn called Bi-Color.  I've never seen such interesting corn silk!  It's a lovely purplish burgundy color.  We've had a bit of rain over the past 2 days to water in a nitrogen boost of blood meal.  Last year I waited too long to feed the corn a nitrogen boost so the ears were a bit stunted and the foliage went a little yellow.

We picked some GORGEOUS lettuce for our supper last night.  With our cool summer, the lettuces have not bolted which is really nice.  They are thriving and are so tender and sweet.  Megan made a lovely creamy ranch dressing from scratch which was the best I've ever tasted.  With "just dug" potatoes from the garden, and grass fed local beef, it was a delicious supper after a very busy day.