A Full Pantry

A full pantry is a huge blessing and a big relief in those times when the grocery budget is feeling a little squeeze. This year we have been blessed with bountiful garden harvests. I am so amazed! Everytime I am harvesting our crops or putting them up so we can enjoy them in the cool winter months, I can't help but think that the "fruits of my labor" were once little tiny seeds and seedlings. God is amazing!!



Coming into this gardening season, Willie and I had big gardening plans. Our main goal was to store up enough food from our summer/fall harvests to make us through until the next garden was producing. We sat down and came up with a rough number of how many of what we needed, and we planted away. Mid way through the season, I was getting a little discouraged because things weren't going exactly as I had envisioned or planned them to be. I wanted the perfect garden, with perfect gardening beds and walkways, with no weeds. Any.Where. End of story. I worked, worked and worked some more--but things just weren't going as I wanted. My tomatillos came down with nasty bugs and once I got that taken care of my zuchinni plants and beloved pie pumpkins were compltely killed out by those pesky squash bugs. My green beans weren't producing at the rate that I thought they should in order for us to end up with what we wanted..so I gave up.



Seriously.



I got to where I didn't want to go out there, it was too discouraging. Then it hit me. You are blessed. Immensely and immeasurably blessed. And you're going to throw it all away?? Everything doesn't have to be perfect. You can't give up when the going gets tough. Persevere and you will be richly blessed.



Slowly but surely Willie and I are regaining the garden. It has been overtaken by weeds in the walkways, but it is still producing like crazy! We planted some more green beans and some asparagus beans (huge 2-3 foot long beans) so that we can have a small fall harvest to keep our storage up.



Looking in my pantry and in my freezer just makes me smile. God, You are so good!



As of today, this is what my pantry and my freezer hold--all of which is from this year. (I do still have some pickles and jelly from last year, but they are not included on this list).

• 33 bags (with roughly 1 cup each) Chopped Green or Yellow Pepper {frozen}


• 5 (½ cup portions) sliced jalapenos {frozen}


• 12 cups shredded zuchinni (I was able to get these before my plants were killed off) {frozen}


• 2 gallon bags of Tomatillos {frozen}


• 1 Ice cream bucket of Blackberries. {frozen}


• 46 quarts Green Beans


• 11 pints sliced banana peppers


• 4 pints sliced jalapenos.


• 4 pints Hot Pepper Mix (Chinese 5 color, Fish Peppers, Banana Peppers, Jalapenos, and Cherry Bombs)


• 3 pints Spaghetti sauce (We've been using some of these. I do believe there were also 2 quarts and a pint more)


• 26 pints Diced Tomatoes.


• 6 Half-Pints of Corn Cob Jelly {recipe to come Friday}


• 6 pints; 5 Half Pints Blackberry Jelly


• 4 Half Gallon; 5 Quarts Sweet Pickles.

In addition to this list, I still have jalapenos waiting to be turned into more Jalapeno Jelly (notice there is none on this list!), banana peppers, various hot peppers, green/purple beans, cucumbers, and 100 tomatoes ready to be preserved. As well as a few pie pumkins that are this close to pie.

Wow. So glad I didn't throw in the towel!

It may not be the prettiest garden these days, but let me tell ya something. It's mine. God gave it to me. ;)

How is your garden and your food storage coming along?