(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.