Puttin' By

I don't know whether to call this entry "puttin' by" or "bye-bye Puttin' By". Our garden is a terrible mess. There are weeds everywhere there isn't a foot of mulch. Funny how the weeds ALWAYS make good...It has been very dry this summer here in the Midwest and our gardens are paying for it.

• The corn didn't set well at all so we have short ears, one on a stalk instead of 2 and they aren't filled out all the way either.
• Bugs had Mardi-Gras on our green beans so there are very few of those.
• The tomatoes look good though we don't have any ripe ones YET!!!
• Our potatoes are ready to dig but I'm not sure yet where I'm going to store them. I had supposed to can them, a horrible waste of energy and space to store potatoes. Recently though, the thought of dehydrating them has crossed my mind.

Speaking of dehydrating, I found an awesome forum for sharing canning and preserving recipes. Sugar Mountain Homesteading Board I got the idea to dry the yellow squash my mother in law gave me. HUGE SUCCESS!!! I salted it lightly with sea salt and they taste JUST like potato chips! No kidding! Funny though how 12 pounds of squash can be dried to fit into a half-pint jar! LOL It's gonna take alot of squash to get a pound of "chips". hehehehe I'll probably used them in stews and casseroles rather than as snacks. Maybe if I had abigger dehydrator I'd do it for snacks. This way, my little "Harvest Master" dehydrator is barely adequate. Maybe next year?