With Alisha’s cheerful and enthusiastic help, we’re sure getting a lot done this summer. Like I’ve said, she’s a whirlwind berry picker/garden harvester. Yesterday she picked the Provider beans again and got a huge, heaping basket full. (Remember, we just picked beans three days ago!) Because of my bad knees, I simply can’t pick blueberries anymore as it involves crawling along on the ground or much deep bending. But Alisha loves to pick them! So she drove to a nearby spot where she and Will had discovered an abundance of blueberries. She was gone all afternoon and came home with three ice cream buckets full. While Alisha was picking berries I went to work and cut up and canned all those Providers. I ended up with 10 quarts and five pints. And we’ll be picking them again in three days!

I also went to work and cleaned out and arranged places to put all those wonderful things we’ve been canning as I was out of counter and island space. Like always, I move the new jars to the back and bring the older ones to the front so we can rotate our food. I carried boxes of full jars downstairs and brought empties up to fill.

Will’s hard at work spreading manure on our fields and also between the rows of corn in the North garden. He’s hoping to be able to cut hay tomorrow. The weather forecast seems to be changing hourly. First it’s a 60% chance of rain. Then it’s sunny. Gee, sometimes it’s hard to know what to do!

The Seneca Sunrise sweet corn has recovered from the attack of the corn earworm.

The gardens continue to be awesome. Our Seneca Sunrise sweet corn has recovered well from the attack of the corn earworms and is now tasseling beautifully and silks are showing already — and no worms! The beans are terrific. In the next few days, we’ll be trying some of the Crawford pole beans, an heirloom bean we were given. They look scrumptious. And the Iroquois beans are so thick on the vines I can hardly wait for them to dry down as they are my favorite baked bean (so far!).

See how nice our Iroquois pole beans are doing? The vines are just loaded.

I’m stunned by our lettuce row. By accident, Alisha and Will tilled that row up with the Mantis tiller. But many of the plants went on to not only survive but thrive. The Dark Red Lollo Rosso is gorgeous.

The Dark Red Lollo Rosso could be in the flower beds, it’s so pretty.

Well, I’m off to clean and can up those three pails of blueberries Alisha harvested yesterday. It’s cloudy and threatens to rain today so we’ll see. We could use some rain but have only been getting a few sprinkles. — Jackie

17 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you so much. I love looking at pictures of the garden produce, especially in the winter.

  3. Happy to have found your blog. I subscribed to BWH for years and you were my favorite writer. My family lives on 30 acres in SO just south of Superior so we have the same weather. Wish I had your energy!!!

  4. I have a garden seat that is very helpful as I can neither squat or kneel. I got mine at Ollie’s for about $14.00 and it’s well worth it. If I could slim down so I didn’t squash my belly while using it it would work even better.

    • I’ve got a plastic seat that fits onto a 6 gallon plastic bucket so I can pick beans okay but it doesn’t work in the blueberries; too tippy.

    • She uses essential oils and dresses in dark clothes. So far she’s only had one tick, a little wood tick that was barely hooked on.

  6. We have finally had some summer weather with most of the last week highs in the upper 70’s and low 80’s here in the copper basin Alaska. Our provider beans are in a hoop house and we should get our first picking tomorrow. We have been eating zuchini for a week. I envy you the corn. We have two short rows in the hoop house which haven’t tasseled out yet. Tomatoes looking good in the green house and setting tomatoes.

  7. I am just in awe ofbyou.. I have read your books, and I am hoping my health is coming back now, my diabetes is under control I have more energy, and the spinal cord stimulator implant in my spine ,I am now used to a year later.. so hoping I can get off my butt and do some of what you accomplish, I get so inspired by you.. I have fuut trees and 3 garden beds and blueberries,lemons, olives,herbs, but when I got sick and I had to have my back done it was all on it’s own in FLORIDA heat, so I need to try and bring em all along and see what I can salvage..I was down for over a year…so God willin I can get them back to good.thank you for your inspiration…

    • I’ll be praying for you to recover your energy. Just pace yourself so you don’t get overwhelmed. It’ll get done, one step at a time.

  8. I have been a subscriber f0r many years, My husband of sixty one years died April 21st.. I have never read one of my magazines on the computer before, but I would love to read yours. Im not sure how to start doing it. Thank you sincerely, Ellen Thrash

    • I’m so sorry to hear of your husband’s death. That’s SO very hard. To get Backwoods Home Magazine, you’ll need a Kindle. You can buy one online through Amazon very reasonably. Then you can just click on the box above that says Subscribe to BHM on Kindle and it’ll show you how. It’s easy and cheap. (And with a Kindle, you can read all sorts of books, including my Westerns!)

  10. We too picked blueberries at local berry farm. They are beautiful. Your corn looks great. We’ve been having BLT’s the Bill Bean plants have had gust sized tomatoes. The Hidasta shield bean plants are loaded. I plant strike green beans and the have been loaded. Soon sweet corn will be ready. I plant Who’s been Kissed an OP sweet corn developed at Univ. Wisconsin. ER Lindsey

    • We planted some Who’s Been Kissed too this year so we’ll see how it does for us. I’m jealous; our Bill Beans are still green but they’re huge! We’re still waiting for our first BLT!!! Now I’m drooling.

  11. Awesome pictures of your produce. So in addition to writing books, canning and gardening you are also a talented photographer.

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