dehydrating our many tomatoes and catnip

 As I said in my last post we are in the middle of a kitchen renovation so I've been pretty busy.  Tomatoes have been We have been harvesting about 17 lbs a week lately and I have been having to take breaks from our kitchen renovation to dehydrate tomatoes and cook down tomato sauce into a tomato concentrate (takes up less space and is less likely to spoil).  Our green beans have slowed down now, they were producing crazy before we were giving them out to everyone we know.  Ironically we had problems getting them to grow in the spring so I had to replant several times.  Next year we plan to plant half as many beans and plant more cucumbers instead.  The leaves on both our cucumbers and beans are starting to turn brown and die now, but are still producing.

 We are tearing up our laminate floor to expose the hardwood underneath and sanding it down so we can not have anything in the kitchen and it needs to be sealed off, so preserving food has been difficult to say the least.  I forgot all about this in spring.  Whoops!  Guess I shouldn't have planted so much tomatoes!  I also think I'm mildly allergic to them.  I've noticed my psoriasis (an autoimmune skin condition) flares when I eat massive amounts of night shades (like tomatoes).  Of course I realized this too after I planted a massive amount of tomatoes.  Next year I think I will plant more root vegetables so that the amount I have to harvest is more balanced throughout the season.  I'd rather have a continuous supply of fresh veggies than to have a lot of one crop only and spend a lot of time preserving it.  Every year I learn a little more!


I usually try to post pics every week when our garden is at our peak, but I didn't have the time to do a full post like I usually do so I thought I'd do a video tour of our garden instead while it's at it's height of beauty.  You'll notice our garden is in front of a busy street and side walk.  I was a bit self conscious filming this video because there is likely to be someone walking by while filming and hear me talking to myself about my garden. Just a little crazy.  Instead I actually had someone stop by and compliment my garden in between filming this video.  This happens often when I'm tending to my garden.  I love hearing such great feedback from my neighbours and meeting neighbours that I never would otherwise, which I 'm sure would never happen if our garden was in the back. It's nice to know others enjoy seeing what I will do different each year. Check out my videos below of our garden, I hope you enjoy it!

       Check out my video tour of our front garden taken Sept 13 2013.



                 Here is a tour of what we are growing in our backyard

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