MORE INTENSE BOTTLING
September 16th - September 30th

It took us all a few days to recover after all the grape juice I did over the weekend. But it took me a lot longer. So it wasn't until the next Friday that I had energy enough to do some more bottling! Melvin (Grandpa Kuhni) offered to buy peaches if I would bottle them for him. Now, bottled peaches are MY FAVORITE bottled food EVER!!! I would rather have home-bottled peaches than gold. So I had to take him up on his offer. We found a great place down south, and I was able to talk the lady there down to $6.00 per half bushel. That's saying something because the "perfect" peaches they had were $18.00 per half bushel. I only had to cut out little bits here and there of the peaches, so it was a really great deal!

There were quite a few peaches, so I had to just lay them out on the floor, the counters, the table. We got them on Wednesday, so they were perfect for bottling by Friday the 21st.




It was hard to wait to bottle these because the more they sat there, the more we wanted to eat them! I really had to discipline myself, and tell myself, "No! You want to have these in the winter!"






With all the preparation it took, I finished 14 quarts on Friday, and then 51 more quarts on Saturday. I am always amazed at how much work it is to bottle! But the finished product is well worth it, especially in mid-winter when peaches are almost $2.00 a pound! Besides, the canned peaches you buy in the stores taste terrible! There is nothing to compare with home-bottled peaches!

I wonder how many of you are thinking that I've finally cracked with all the bottling I've done? Well, I want you to see close up how beautiful peaches are! And we don't just eat the peaches themselves, we also use the leftover juice in the bottle to mix with drinks. It really adds a nice flavor to orange juice or any fruit juice from the store.












Grandpa Kuhni was in and out of our house that whole week leading up to bottling the peaches. He was WONDERFUL to bring me extra peaches, bottles, carriers....everything! Vaughn of course LOVED to see him because Grandpa Kuhni is a very youthful person. And Melvin loves Vaughn. So here they are sword-fighting with sticks in the front room. Vaughn didn't know what to think at first......



But then he started to bust out some pretty serious moves. I love the fact that he's wearing Grandma Kuhni's old gardening hat. Melvin had me wear it when I was picking grapes so I wouldn't get a sunburn. He really takes care of me! WE LOVE YOU GRANDPA KUHNI!!!





You would think I had had enough bottling, but, yes, only THREE days later, I went over to Amy's to bottle the last of the salsa for the summer. I like to lay out all the vegetables we use from our gardens and take pictures of them, to help me remember just how much produce a garden can make! So here are the Anaheim peppers.....







Here are the yellow and purple peppers from my garden.....















Here are the green bell peppers....
And I'm pretty sure we had a few store-bought ones in there that were like 4 for $1.00. You can't pass up that price, especially when you need a few more bell peppers to complete the batch!








Here are the tomatoes from my garden. The really big ones are from an Italian tomato plant that brother Kuhni gave to me. I am going to get one a lot earlier this next year because it produces gorgeous mild tomatoes that are HUGE! Each tomato was at least a pound in weight (as far as the big ones went!)









And finally, here were the jalapenos, some of which I know were from the store. But, to make you really impressed, the total number of peppers from just my garden was over 430 peppers of the different types! Cool, huh?!?!










Here's me, a proud gardener, with the fruits (or should I say vegetables) of my labors!













As is expected when bottling with Amy, we always have to have a lot of fun. So here I am using two of my biggest tomatoes as "Princess Leah Buns." Vaughn will enjoy this when he is older, since he too is a Star Wars Freak like his parents. I would also like to point out that I am NOT wearing my usual green recycling shirt, which I somehow always manage to wear to Amy's for a bottling session. Amy would be proud.




I have no idea where my pictures of the finished salsa went. And I have no idea how many quarts we did together that day. But just to give you an idea, we didn't use all the peppers, and I still had enough left over, along with more tomatoes from my garden, that I was able to put up 13 more quarts of salsa three days later on Friday the 28th. My next door neighbor also had some extra tomatoes, so I put up 13 quarts of tomatoes that day as well. I think Vaughn was so sick of me bottling that he finally lost it and found a play gun at Amy's house to threaten me with!!! (He was fine actually, and loved playing with Amy's kids while we were there).








So that's that I guess! I'm sorry there is so much bottling to talk about right now, but that's what happens at the end of summer! And yes, there will be more in the next entry, but it ends soon after that! Until then!

Love, Lisa