Today is what most people would say the last day of summer. Some years it feels like fall already but not this year. The temperature was around 83 *however since this is 10-15 degrees cooler than last week, it was a pleasant day to work outside. I spent alot of time trying to battle back the weeds. I got all of the blueberry bed cleared and about half of the bed on the side of the house. I also spent some time pulling weeds in the garden, removing dead things and trying to make it look a little bit better. I am actually very happy with it now. I harvested a gallon of tomatoes and we have 14 zucchini plants that have sprouted along with two bean plants. I also found a couple of loofa sponges that are big enough to use effectively! I am holding out hope that we get a load of zucchini and a couple more nice batches of tomatoes in the next couple of weeks.
Matt and I ended up installing a new rain barrel for the bed in the front of the house. I had also decided to remove the back barrier. I am planning to make this bed a pepper bed next year so it will not be needed and it was actually really ugly. We also placed some additional pieces of wood under the legs to help it look straighter. I also worked on some general clean up around the outside of the house and we changed the front sign from flowers to fall!
The other area that was a focus was continuing to add to the stockpile. I made a batch of salsa on Saturday and canned up four additional pints. I also made both pizza sauce and a couple of extra pizza crust today! The canning closet is looking really full and I am thankful that even though I did not officially participate in the Every bit counts challenge. I only have less than 20 empty jars at this point. I am very hopefully that we will be able to fill these remaining jars up with tomato products in the next month as well as start to empty some of the jars out so that we can significantly reduce the grocery budget.
I am disappointed in the fact that we are almost eight days in September and I have yet to have a no spend day. On the bright side, we decided and scheduled a short weekend trip to Myrtle Beach in October as a time to just get away and enjoy some time together without a lot of outside demands.