Fruits of our labor

I was able to get off work early today and so I took advantage of the beautiful sunny day and cleaned out one of my garden beds. It is my goal to clean out one of the 4 beds each week this month and fill my garbage can in order to avoid having to take a trailer load of waste to the dump (which will be virtually impossible with Dennis' new 6 day, 10 hr a week work schedule). You should have seen me trying to wheel the garbage can across our very, very bumpy back lawn around the side of the house and out to the curb with a ton of dead weight cucumbers in it. It honestly felt like a ton. I had to stop and rest several times, I was so afraid of dumping it and that would have been AWFUL!! But it definitely counted as a good heart pumping exercise which is always good for those dieting and trying to loose weight.

It is a sad time for me when I have to put the garden to rest for the winter. It seems this year we didn't have a long enough season and I just love fresh produce. Gardening is so much better than shoveling snow and I wish there was some way to keep a garden year round.

This is bed two - cucumbers (I did bed one last week - Zucchini)
This is the after results. All ready for winter.
I got a few cucumbers out of it, and picked the melons from bed three that were ripe, and one acorn squash that was growing into the cucumber bed. I hope the 3 melons left in the garden don't freeze this weekend as they need a little longer to ripen.
Tomorrow I get to pick grapes and if my back hasn't given out, then pick the apples. I love bottled grape juice and it is the easiest thing I can all year.

I also love apple sauce, but don't necessarily like the all day job that it is. Maybe I'll make some apple juice and freeze it, that is if I can find a spare nook in my freezer which is already bulging.