A weekend's work...

While I did harvest the garden this weekend, I didn't do anything yet with the harvest, other than refrigerating the beans.  It was a rather meager harvest this week, but I do have peppers coming on in large quantities, if only they would turn orange or red like they are supposed to.


My favorite harvest came from the dahlia bed. (there are four views of the same bouquet).


The day, however, was dedicated to apples and asian pears.  The pears were spoiling so I took care of them first.  They just went into the freezer after pealing and coring.  I wasn't sure what else to do with them and they'll keep there.  In spite of all the good help, there were still two partial boxes of apples and two buckets.  And, in order to have room in the freezer, I pulled the frozen applesauce apples and stuck them on the stove to cook.  Then, as I pealed and cored the apples, the sauce apples went into the pot to cook.  The green apples went into the freezer for tarts and pies. They are much firmer fleshed and could retain some semblance of texture. At the end of the day I had three crockpots of "almost applesauce" and two buckets of apples left.


I let it continue to cook in the crockpots on Sunday until I could can it mid afternoon and evening.  It's a chunky sauce because the fresh fruit was added to the frozen but it's got a good taste and texture.  Each pot has less than 1/2 cup of sugar, because the apples were naturally sweet, and I've also added cinnamon.
I ended up with 29 pints, which, for all the work, doesn't seem like a lot, but it's free food.


I didn't come to work feeling exhausted today so I think I paced myself pretty well.