The busy year has turned into a busy spring and now summer.  We got the gardens all planted and now we are just starting to preserve the bounty from the garden.  We have been eating off the garden for several weeks and now find we could not keep up with the greens so today we froze five meals of spinach and tomorrow we must freeze three meals of bok choy as it is getting so big.  We like to eat it while it is still small enough for one or two meals at the most from one plant and they are all coming in at once.  We have been eating them but now other vegetable are getting ready and we either freeze the bok choy or lose it and it is much to nice to lose.  We will freeze it the same way we do spinach only with the bok choy I will chop it before I blanch it.

Everyday now we have to string up more support lines for the tomatoes.  They are growing like weeds and some are getting too tall and heavy for just the lines.  We have poles to string the lines too and also have heavy lines (lace)every foot up the poles and so far it is working well with the tomatoes growing nice a straight even after the heavy rain of Saturday (2 inches) only a few had to be tied up again. They all have two bunches of buds on them now.  When they get up to 6 bunches tall then I will cut them off and not let the grow any taller.  That way they can put more energy into making bigger and better tomatoes.  Many of them are blooming now but there are no tomatoes yet.  Starting this week we will dig potatoes and eat off the garden.  We will take one row at a time as we need them and when the row is gone we will plant green beans in the row.  We did that last year and it worked well.  We will need lots more green beans this year as Becca wants twice as many and Joe wants a couple cases at least.  Patty and ourselves will need the same as last year I guess.  The zucchini is blooming and there are mostly female flowers so we should have lots of zucchini.  We will can more this year also as we found every one liked those either fried or baked right from the can. The Brussels sprouts are looking great so if nothing gets into them to eat the leaves we should have some of those to freeze this year.

The raspberries and blueberries are almost ready.  Another two weeks should see both of those ready to pick.  The raspberries will be turned into jelly  for everyone and this year we should have enough to make the Christmas jelly gifts out of the raspberries.  Holly has never had those before so it will be a nice surprise to get a case of the half pints to give to her relatives and friends. Becca and Patty have done that for two years now and the jelly is always a hit. The blueberries will go mostly into sauce for the oatmeal in the morning.

The watermelon plants finally have caught on.  It has been a couple weeks since we set out the plants and so far had just sat there deciding if they would live or die.  Now they are growing and looks good, at long last.  We only have three hills so wont get many but I think there is enough of us to eat them all fresh and we can use the cucumbers for pickles.  They are growing fast now also but no buds yet.

Joe is all moved in.  That was a job and a half.  It took two days just to get the people out after we closed on the house and then Joe and Holly had to do all the cleaning of the house before they could move in.  They are still cleaning up outside but things are looking good so they are not discouraged. The kids love their rooms and are enjoying helping get settled.  We of course love having them this close, just about one hour away!!  I am in my glory baking and today I did 6 loaves in between picking cleaning and freezing spinach and making dinner.  I think I will take it easy this afternoon.  Have a great day.