It's almost time to bid farewell to our little garden in the backyard (that has now expanded into the front yard as well.) In just a few weeks, we'll be loading up our precious few belongings and movin' on up... to an apartment in a big old house in a big old city in Ohio. What does this mean for our little garden? Our downstairs neighbors will become the sole proprietors (and tomato-eaters) and hopefully they will continue to shower the garden with love... and more importantly, water. Meanwhile, we will be Up North, trying desperately to turn our new backyard into another little garden.
Why move right smack dab in the middle of "garden season"? Well, it's actually always garden season, in one way or another. Here in Tennessee, we have garden-fresh veggies (radishes, spinach, lettuce) even in the winter. But it is true that by moving, we'll miss a whole lot of tomatoes, peppers, cukes, zucchini, and other goodies. The bottom line: too bad. Life marches on, zucchini blossoms or not. We've been trying to make up for what we'll be missing by taking full advantage of the garden before we make the big move. Tonight, after a round of mini golf with friends, we parked ourselves in the kitchen and canned five jars of homemade tomato sauce. We have now successfully (we hope, anyway--won't know until we open them months from now) canned six jars of wineberry jam, three jars of diced tomatoes, twelve jars of dill pickles, four jars of tomatillo salsa, and of course, the recent five jars of tomato sauce. Although our first adventures in canning were intimidating, it's amazing how quickly you get used to the system. Now, it's almost old hat. We're veterans--kind of. That doesn't mean we don't occasionally burn ourselves with boiling water, of course. The great thing about canning is that we can take a bit of our garden with us when we move north. Come December, when absolutely nothing is growing in the frigid North (okay, so Ohio isn't exactly the Arctic, but it's cold up there!), we'll be munching away on jam and pickles and reminiscing about the good old days down south in Tennessee.
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