September ... and the harvest begins!

In order to tell y'all about HARVESTING my balcony garden, I must first back up a couple of weeks ... this video was taken (I DISCOVERED MY CHEAP LITTLE 10 year old CAMERA RECORDS VIDEOS ... COMPLETE WITH SOUND!  HOW EXCITING IS THAT???) on August 13.  Not sure if the video is going to work or not - this is an experiment!  It was a dreary foggy day, and I was quite sure it spelled the end of summer.

 However, we've had a couple more mostly glorious weeks of summer, and my tomatoes and hot peppers went GONZO!  I was picking a "shirt-tail" full of little tomatoes every evening!  I was taking my toast and tea out to the balcony every morning and standing beside the tomatoes chowing down on their sweetness!  (Which is rather amazing cuz this gal HATED raw tomatoes in the early part of my life!)

Yesterday was Labour Day here in Canada, so I got busy harvesting some of my bounty.  18 jars of tomato basil jelly ... all from my own tomatoes and basil!  12 jars of shrieking HOT pepper jelly.  And just cuz I was in domestic gear, two different batches of cookies for the freezer and a couple of loaves of lemon bread, one for the freezer and one for coffee/tea at work today.

 In the process of all this, I discovered a great way to take one's mind off arthritic aches and pains ... process Thai Dragon Chili peppers without wearing rubber gloves!!!  I swear my hands were still glowing radioactive red at midnight last night!

Of course, one must SAMPLE the goodies ... quality control don't you know ... so enjoyed a mid-day crackers, cheese with tomato basil jelly and a glass of Chardonnay!  Yum!

 In an effort to retain some summer sunshine, I knit up these sunshiney yellow socks.  Here is one beside a pot of carrots on my balcony railing.  It was early morning ... VERY early morning so this photo doesn't do the yellow wool justice.

 THIS is a better shot of the yellow.  Note to self:  if you want to take a picture of something sunshiney yellow, wait for the sunshine to appear!  It's an easy arrowhead pattern ... the "arrowhead" can point up or down.

 For these socks, the arrowhead is pointing up.

Will be eating tomatoes for awhile yet, unless we get a killing frost ... that could happen here any night now although the forecast for the week ahead is warm.  Lettuce, peas, and some herbs are now history.  Next weekend I plan to pickle peppers and harvest the carrots and potatoes.

Have a sunshiney great week, ya'll!