Peper Jelly

This weekend I had some time on my hands and decided to finally make some pepper jelly for my husband and father-in-law. Well I was nervous as this is not something that I will eat and had never tasted before. I got the recipe off the Ball box of liquid pectin and started on my way. It ended up making way more than number of small jars I had could have used 2 more small jars, but had a large jar on hand and decided to use that. My husband said it taste good and taste similar to what he had when he was in Georgia as a kid. I really enjoyed making it once I got over the scare of the liquid boiling over the pot (all I could see was me in the hospital having to explain....I was attempting to make pepper jelly). Funny now that I look back on it.

Is this Midew? (Update)

Update to Is this Midlew? (Originally posted 07/29/09) Well, I took out one of the plants that looked the worst and replaced it with another plant from a pot that seemed to suck all the liquid from the plant when I watered. Can you believe this is less than 2 weeks later. I already have zucchini (quite a few). I should have some to pick in a week or so. This is amazing. Also, I think by putting in a soaker hose in the raised bed really helped with mildew, since the root of the plant was getting the water and not the leaves.

My Garden-Update

Well over last week, I surveyed the garden more closely since it has been so hot and this being my first year gardening, I wanted to see what type of changes occur during this time.

Keep in mind that I now know how important it is to keep track of dates so you know if things should already be ready, next planting season this will be monitored

Carrots-I decided to pull these to see if maybe I had anything (since it had been a few months since seeding/sprouting, well I have micro mini carrots, none edible. I pulled them all to make room to plant my tomato plants. BUMMER, just like the radishes

Lettuce-Way to hot to continue trying to grow these, so I pulled them and planted another tomato plant in its place.

Lima Beans-Nothing so far, I saw flowers, but no beans have formed. Seems to be the story of my garden. Here is a recent photo of them. I think they may be done for, not sure. I still see lots of flowers, but no beans.

Tomato plants-I have a total of 3 yellow tomato plants that I did from seed, only one lonely tomato is forming. I battle the tomato horn worms daily, you think you picked them all the night before and the next day, BAM you see more. I decided to use a safe caterpillar killer, I know this may affect butterflies, but I am loosing my tomatoes due to the horn worms (I thought by now the birds would have started to eat the worms, but I guess not).


Peppers-My hot and bell peppers have produced all season long. Next season, I won't plant as many, maybe just one plant of each kind. My family don't like green bell peppers that much and the others colors won't be eaten as fast, so I will have to think about the ones to plant.

Strawberry Jam

Last month I tried my hand at doing a little preserving. I took a class in June on preservation/storage of food. I did not have strawberries in my garden, so I picked up some frozen ones, because the fresh I had prior to this were not all that great. I followed the directions on the pectin package by Ball. The process was very easy and fast. After letting the frozen strawberries thaw enough to mash them, it took 30-40 minutes for the whole process and most of that time was letting the mixture in the individual containers set up. The great thing is that they last up to 1 year in the freezer and 3 weeks in the fridge. I have plans for other fruits to make into preserves. You should try it. Since we already had some store bought jam in the fridge, all 5 of the containers went to the freezer. My father-in-law will receive 2 of these.