Salsa!

It's late summer, and the harvest is building. Yesterday we picked several pounds of figs. I have a Black Turkey Fig, it's about 8 years old, and this year it's absolutely full of figs. I covered it with netting to keep the birds from taking everything. I don't mind sharing a few with them, but they've been taking every ripe fig!

There were enough tomatoes last week to make salsa. Well, I have to admit that I used two gallon bags of frozen tomatoes from last fall. I had a great harvest last summer, but also my son's wedding, the illness, death and memorial for my Mother-in-law and a whole lot of other things that kept me from canning. So I took the frozen ones, added fresh tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and made a nice batch of salsa. I ended up with 8 pints of salsa to can for the winter. It isn't much, and cooking salsa down takes most of the day. But it's still satisfying to know I have more homemade sauce ready, and can enjoy it all winter long.

The sunflowers are looking so wonderful! I'll post some more pics, I just have really enjoyed them in the garden. I have to admit that typically I only plant vegetables, trying to get as much yield out of the garden as possible. But last year and this one I added easy-growing flowers, like sunflowers. One of them is over 12 feet tall, with a huge flower that is now turning into a seed machine. The rest are smaller, but with lots of flowers on each stalk. They've pollinized each other, so I have one that is a hybrid from the maroon and a yellow- it has the most beautiful flowers! they are maroon at the center, turning to orange and then a blazing yellow on the outer edges of the petals. Fabulous! I hope to save some of the seeds, maybe I can get more that color next year. No guarantee though, it may have bred with the yellows this year, and all the flowers will be yellow next year, who knows.