Fancy Title

A bowl of tomatoes, a couple zucchini, a few peppers, and a cucumber.

There's a couple little cucumbers here and there but they haven't taken off yet.

A cold front came through and blew the smoke and heat away. Very nice below normal temps in the forecast for the rest of the week.

A couple violet sparkle peppers, lots of Koralik cherry and Baxter's bush tomatoes, a Golden Gates, Streak Lightning, Black cherry, Better Than Candy, Dream Cream, and one I lost the label for. A few tomatoes were picked a bit early.

I'm already planning my tomatoes for next season and taking heat waves into consideration is something that factored into my choice for one line. The temps we had are historically extremely unusual here (normal temps are 20 degrees cooler) so selecting plants for heat tolerance was not something Michigan gardeners needed to do. But seeing as it's becoming more common, it is something I will plan for next year.

The smoke left for a few hours but it got significantly hotter than the already hot forecast. I tried to wait until it got a lot cooler but the smoke started rolling back in pretty fast, so I took the dogs for a quick woods walk. Granite can't do long hikes in the heat and shouldn't be out in bad smoke since his damaged lungs put him in the "sensitive" category. The dogs were happy to finally get to do something though.

Puppies that want to Do Something but can't because the smoke is so thick it's legitimately dangerous. Finally cooling down and we're still stuck inside.

Black cherry, koralik cherry, and golden gates.

Halloween is a Big Deal for Cinder, lots of opinions about that.

The melons are taking a bit longer to get going, but they're going now. One cantelope (or honewdew, I forgot what went where) is attempting to grow straight up in the lilac bush.

Oh I'm going to freeze it into cubes, so that won't be an issue. Botulism is something I don't plan on experiencing.

First summer squash! Accidentally let them get a bit big, they're supposed to be round. Still delicious. Variety is Maxidiwac landrace.

I added four pickling cucumbers to the arch as well.

Having a higher paying part time job helps with that, since I work very early mornings, I have most of the day to do other things. I do need to go to bed earlier than most people, and during peak (the shipping industry gets insane in December) I am working full time. The majority of my hobbies are seasonal. Hunting, gardening, foraging, canning. I'm not always doing all of them at once, but the things that can be combined, I do. Hunting, foraging, and hiking are dog activities, I very rarely do any of those without a dog or two. I have so many projects I want to do that I might not ever get around to. Maple syrup for example, that took me five years? And when I do finally get into something, I tend to go in pretty hard (insert my brand of 'tism here). And most of my garden stuff is fairly hands off, I do check the plants every morning after work and water/prune/harvest if I need to, but the fruit I put in doesn't need much attention. Starting plants from seed can be a little time consuming but I start the majority of that when I am tapering off hunting so they don't conflict much. I can usually do a couple things in one day, go hiking/foraging, then come home and make something out of the berries I collected. But if I won't be able to get around to something right away, I throw it in the freezer (I have four) and do it later. If I don't have enough berries for a batch of jam for example, I freeze them until I do. And if I don't have time for driving to hike somewhere, there's a little trail system in my neighborhood I can walk to. I do a lot of stuff with the dogs out there. While they are high drive dogs, they are not high energy, they are pretty chill most of the time and don't want to do much when it gets hot. As for food prep, I am a big fan of the crock pot, or things that can be done in one pan, or made in big batches so I have food for the whole week. When I make up raw stuff for the dogs I do several weeks to months at a time and store it in the freezers. Anyways, there isn't any real organization to it, I just do what I feel like that day, or what the seasons dictate. Black raspberries are only ripe for a week or two here, so if I don't harvest them then, I miss out.

I didn't get enough currants to make jam this year due to several reasons, so I tried canning whole fruits instead. I did two half pint jars of each color plus one of mixed raspberries. I knew the fruit would shrink a bit during canning but didn't expect this much! I used heavy hickory syrup since I love using that as a sweetener with these fruits and the fruit appears to be infusing the syrup.

Very few berries on this hike. An overabundance of humidity though, and I didn't time the break in the rain right so we got soaked.

Six quarts ready for the freezer.