Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Summer Days

I do a weekly e-mail for my Sunday School class with prayer requests and praises. I try to include a "Thought for the Week" in it. This week my topic was "summer is here". So I decided to include those thoughts here.

You can never appreciate the shade of a tree unless you have sweat in the sun (Unknown)

In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow candle light;
In summer, quite the other way; I have to go to bed by day.
(Robert L. Stevenson)

Summer Is:
Beautiful flowers, Balmy breezes, and walks in the park
Riding bike, baseball, and kids swimming in pools and beaches
picnics, warm starlit nights, and fire flies
barbeques, and the smell of freshly mowed lawns
family vacations, going fishing, and eating ice cream and watermelon
gardening and canning and freezing veggies and fruits.

What do you think of when you think of summer?

Speaking of gardening, and preserving fruits and veggies, here are a few pics of my garden.


Overview of our garden

My flowers are just starting to bloom

Lettuce, carrots, beets and sweet corn

tomatoes, kholarabi and green beans

squash

My red beets don't seem to have done as well this year, but I was able to get six pints of pickled beets.


We have several different kinds of apple trees. We make applesauce from the Yellow Transparent and the Lodi

The cottage cheese containers and the yellow butter containers all have applesauce in our freezer. I felt bad that I didn't take any pictures during the process of making it.


The plants in my garden are looking good. It just seems like this year it is taking a long time for them to actually have produce ready to eat. We have had lettuce, beets and radishes, and some kholarabi. And we finally have green tomatoes on the vines.


I was thinking that my garden is kind of like some of us. Sometimes we don't always bear fruit like we should for the Lord. However, just like my garden, it's never too late to start producing.

6 comments:

Brenda said...

Isn't it sad that we are already talking of summer in the past tense. I think your gardening work is only just beginning--the harvesting, canning, freezing, etc. Nice photos.

Wanda..... said...

Your garden is impressive Donna, I remember it from last year too. I've gotten a few cherry tomatoes, but am waiting for the large ones to ripen. I notice a little pink blush on one today! So far one zuchinni, a few cucumbers and peppers have reached the table, but my garden is small compared to yours!

Bernie said...

Donna your garden is wonderful, you are much further ahead with your growing season than Alberta.
Everything looks so good, I love home grown food and those beets are a favorite of mine.....:-) Hugs

Diana said...

Very nice Donna! I love your last comment! You have a huge garden which must take a lot of your time! I love beets and yours looked so good! Unfortunately I am the only one in my house that likes them so I don't think to buy them often! My mom used to love them too!
My tomatoes seem a bit slow this year too. I had two right off the bat. There are at least a dozen green ones on the plant now, just waiting to ripen!
I love summer Donna but Autumn is my very favorite season!
Love Di ♥

Rebecca said...

Oh, my! I didn't realize how much time had passed since I looked at your garden and saw it quite bare! So, are the beets "over"? So hard to believe apples are already sauced!

Rebecca said...

Oh, my! I didn't realize how much time had passed since I looked at your garden and saw it quite bare! So, are the beets "over"? So hard to believe apples are already sauced!