Deep Cleaning and Garden Clean Up

(Before I started)

The photo is only one small corner of the 3 vegetable and fruit gardens we have this year.  Day one started with pulling dead tomato plants and pulling stakes.  A good portion of the back is still under water.  This clean up, considering I'm doing it by myself, will take a week or two.  

After starting to clear the corn stalks from the garden, I got an idea.  I took a few of them to the front of the house and added a few pumpkins and squash that won't make it to the table (vines died before they ripened, or bugs got to them).  They will make a nice decoration for fall, without having to buy anything or waste anything.  It's a blessing that the garden keeps giving in different ways.

And speaking of the garden blessings, we are still getting more green peppers.  I am dehydrating some of them today, and may be doing that for the rest of the week.  I have no room in my freezer for anymore.  These can be used in soups/meatloaves/stews, and all sorts of goodies.  Instead of drying my cayenne in the dehydrator, I simply pulled the plants and tied them to hang upside down in the garage.  I still want to build my solar dehydrator for spicy peppers.

In between it all, I am working on deep cleaning the house.  The garden kept me busy, now the house/home will - windows, walls, doors, the inside of the fridge and so on (sigh).

I put notes on a few jars in the fridge yesterday.  They all say "Eat Me!" on them.  There are a few jars of salsa and some pear butter that need eaten up.  I may try to "wing" a recipe tonight and use the salsa to spice it up.  I bet it would taste good mixed in with baked spaghetti squash.