honing my homestead skills

what you see here is our organic veggie garden with cantaloupe on the tee pee, heirloom roma tomatoes, and a single basil buried under there. i went a little overboard with seeding cos i wanted to be sure something would grow, and thus it got pretty crowded! the salad greens are gone and time to replant for fall crop. in the background are wildflowers, absentee clematis on the trellis (way too slow growing, we'll plant something else in fall), and morning glories + moon flowers along the fence. everything we planted from seed, except the clematis. i'm all about the seeds :) keep in mind this was nothing but a lumpy barren yard of grass and weeds when we bought the house. now it's plants and weeds, lol.

couldn't resist a georgia o'keeffe moment with the moonflower... gosh they smell nice.

i wrote that note for my husband, cos i didn't want him shaking the jar like a science project while the lids sealed. well, it was my first attempt at home canning! here i was prepared for a huge canning project, then seeing my 2 colanders-full of tomatoes reduced to only 2 jars (i was expecting 4 jars). i even had to top off one jar with some water. it was nothing short of a miracle the lids sealed properly- hallelujah! it gives me motivation to plant more veggies next spring.

well, that's my little "homestead minute"! we haven't been doing much in the yard (read: borderline neglect!) in july or august... too hot. as the summer wanes i'm looking forward to fall clean up and fall plantings. and seeing how tall the sunflowers grow :)