Laboring on Labor Day

It was a gorgeous late summer day today!  Plenty of breeze to keep the bugs away (the mosquitoes this year have been horrible!!!), low humidity, sunny, and certainly plenty to do!    With the weather folks predicting several days of rain in the future starting tonight, Harold and I decided to bring in our honey for the year.   This year's honey crop is not going to be very big.  Last year we harvested about 400 lbs, but this year we will be lucky to get 100 lbs.   It is great tasting, though, but scarce.   Not sure what the problem is exactly, but we believe it has something to do with the fact that there was just not an abundance of wildflowers this year, plus it was a very rainy and windy summer.   There wasn't the usual basswood blossom honey flow, and the typical clover crop was very scant this summer.  We usually have about 20 full supers of honey to extract, but this year there are only 10 boxes, and not all the frames are filled out.  Well, we shall take what we get, and hope for a better year.

The 3 boxes in front are practically empty, and there are only 10 supers to work with.   Honey will be at a premium this year unfortunately.

I also harvested my lima bean crop.   Lima beans are another one of those vegetables that people either love or hate.  Very few folks have ever tasted a truly fresh lima bean unless you grow them from your own garden.    Most everyone has eaten the typical frozen limas from the supermarket freezer.   One of my favorite late summer dishes is succotash:  freshly cut corn off the cob, limas, and plenty of butter with a little cream poured over all and mixed.    Really good succotash can only be made with absolutely fresh produce.

A big basket full of freshly picked lima beans.  They are a bother to pick (because they are hard to see as they look just like the leaves of the plant!) and even harder to pod out, but SO worth it!

The picture is a little blurry, but this shows the insides of the lima beans.

All podded out and ready to eat.  I grow enough lima beans to put some in the freezer to use for vegetable soups throughout the winter.

Besides podding out the fresh lima beans, we have been podding out our dry bean crop.  This year I grew pinto beans (a variety called Topaz) and also small red Mexican beans and Jacob's Cattle beans and navy beans.   In the evenings, Harold and I like to sit and pod them out while listening to our favorite radio programs.   We enjoy listening to an old time radio program called "When Radio Was" - old radio shows with some of the original commercials.   My favorite shows are the detective Johnny Dollar episodes, and the eerie shows of The Whistler.   It's an hour long show, sometimes it is comedy, sometimes westerns, sometimes drama. 

There are usually several baskets of dry beans around to pod out.  Always something to do!

I always have several trays of beans drying, and when they are completely dry, they will be stored in glass jars in the pantry. 

It's been a busy few weeks canning - applesauce, pears, and sauerkraut.  This year's kraut turned out so good!   There's only one more item to can up and that is red pepper relish.  I like to have jars of this on hand to stir into cooked beans or baked beans.   Often we will just eat a bowl of navy beans or pinto beans for supper with cornbread.  It is delicious to stir in a couple tablespoon fulls of red pepper relish into the bowl of beans - it gives just the right touch of flavor!
This year I grew very large red peppers in my greenhouse just for this purpose.   Check out the size of these beauties!

Just look at these beautiful red peppers grown in the greenhouse!  They are about 6 inches long or more, and about 5 inches wide.   A normal size green pepper is shown at the left for comparison.

In case you would like to make some red pepper relish yourself, here is the recipe I use:

SWEET RED PEPPER RELISH

About 8 cups of chopped red peppers, chopped in about 1/4 inch dice

1 1/2 c. chopped onions

2 cups cider vinegar

1 3/4 c. sugar

1 T. salt

1 tsp celery seed

     Combine the peppers and onions and add enough boiling water to cover the vegetables.  Let stand for 10 min.  Drain and repeat the boiling water process.   Drain well.  In a large pan, combine the vinegar and sugar and salt until the mixture is hot and the sugar and salt is dissolved.   Add the drained peppers and onions to the pan along with the celery seed and simmer on medium for 15minutes.  Stir frequently.   Ladle the hot relish into hot sterile jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.   Put on lids and rings and process jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.   Makes about 4 pints, or 8 jelly jars.  (I usually put this relish in jelly jars)

You can use part green peppers if you don't have all red peppers.   Or use all green peppers if you want - that's good, too!  Sometimes I add a hot pepper or two to the pepper mix. 

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You can tell that fall is on the way very soon!   There are bits of fall colors in the trees now.   Pretty soon we will have peak colors in the trees, and by the end of the month, the leaves will be gone.   It's sad to see summer end, but it was a very hot summer.   I welcome the change of season!   It's so nice to have cooler weather! 

You can see a bit of yellow and orange in the trees now.   Fall is on the way!

Looking the other way down the road, you can just see another patch of orange in the trees.