Things are slowing down

It seems like just a few weeks ago we planted our garden and as I look at it now, most of it has been mowed down. Not as busy as I was a few weeks ago. Not much left to can from the garden.  All the things that are done producing have been mowed or bush hogged down to make turning the ground easier. Kinda makes ya feel like fall is around the corner. I still have 2 kinds of shell beans (great northern and cranberry) that are in the garden to allow them to dry on the vines. My tomatoes are still producing some along and I still have peppers in there. The tobacco worm beans that were planted the week after fathers day are starting to bloom now. So I do hope I have some of those to can. My Kentucky wonder bush beans didn't do well at all this year. I think one thing that hurt them was the fact that I planted 1 long row along side the field corn and they were not well pollinated. Beans and corn need to be planted in blocks (several short rows) instead of 1 long row. This does help a lot with the bees working the area. We only had about 20 sweet potato plants total to plant so those are in the garden somewhere in the grass.
My cucumbers in the garden have stopped producing and the vines are dying out. I planted the National Pickling cukes this year and they are an heirloom variety. I have seen several large yellow cukes on the trellis where the cukes were so I will be getting those to save the seed.
I have already saved some of the Abe Lincoln tomato seeds. They are a really good tomato, and don't have a core in them to speak of. Instead they will have 3 or 4 small green core like spots. Makes nice juicing tomatoes. They are from a plant that hitchhiked to the flower bed in front of the cellar in some flowers that I planted there. It got really big in the poor dirt that was there and we did stake it up till the kittens climbed up in the plant and broke it. Although broken it still grew and produced some really nice tomatoes. There were no others close to cross pollinate and ruin the seed so I have saved those for next season. So I do have a start on the basic necessary seeds for us for next garden season. Slow progress.
Rodger got the second brewing of beer bottled a little bit ago. This one was a dark beer. I had him store this bottled batch in the cellar. Last time we bottled, we put it in the pantry near the back entry. Then one night I heard a loud pop in that area. Sure enough I checked and 1 bottle had exploded, beer ran all over. We do think it was from a defective bottle tho and not the beer itself.  Now to get all the equipment sanitized and start another batch.
Till next time, blessing from the McGuire homestead.

Stella