You know how I said I thought I'd have a week before having to make jam again? Umm... Today I picked these and there's a lot more ripening:



That's about 3.5 pints and that's after just 2 full days of sun. And the next 9 days are supposed to be just as sunny and in the 70's. Which will be great for my tomatoes, but the raspberries will explode. I think by Friday I'll have to pick again and will have enough to make jam by then. We have about 30 feet of raspberry canes so you can imagine how many berries that is going to be.

I froze 1 quart of what I picked since they will go bad fast just in the fridge, gave 1 pint to Mom for fresh eating, and DS is eating the rest. When I have 4 quarts I will make jam and then anything left after that I will just freeze for smoothies. When I make raspberry jam I will make it in half-pints as it doesn't get eaten as fast as the other jams. Plus they are a better size for giving away at Christmas time.

After picking I sat on the old swing for a while. The view over my head:



Those Italian prunes were just on one teeny tiny section of one branch (I zoomed in). That whole big branch easily held about 50 fruits.

And the view before me, Patricia, out for a stroll:



The chickens and ducks are not liking the firecrackers. They will be in the chicken coop and the duck den tonight before it gets really bad. We will be letting some off ourselves, as far from them as we can get on the property, but not until they are safely in for the night.

I hoed the weeds up in the garden and got rid of some of the straw mulch. I will water tonight from the rain barrels when it's a bit cooler and the water won't evaporate so fast. Most of the broccoli has survived. I lost two plants, one just didn't have enough roots, and the other I accidentally hacked through with the hoe when I was uprooting some tansy. The cauliflower the slugs were eating on is coming back. I found a very natural remedy for the slugs...feeding them to the ducks.

After that I harvested some lettuce. I picked about $6 worth of organic lettuce (enough for the week) so that brings my costs down to $37.06 left to break even on what I've spent on gardening this year. I suppose I could add in the cost of the berries which sell for around $5 for a half pint for the organic ones, which would put me on a $0 footing. But since I didn't pay for those plants (they originally came free from my Mom's sister who had too many about twenty years ago) and I wouldn't actually ever buy raspberries from the store except once in a while in the dead of winter if my kids begged hard enough, I don't think that counts.

Still, at the rate I am going I think I will have met my costs by mid-August. Maybe sooner. The green beans are starting to climb the poles now. We might have some actual green beans before then, especially if this weather keeps up all month.