A-Frame for Growing Cucumbers

Last year I made an A-frame for my cucumbers and zucchini, but for some reason, neither the cucumbers nor the zucchini survived.  This year, in addition to heavily composting the garden, we had a ton of rain, and I think it really helped.  I limited the A-frame to cucumbers, and helped them grow up the frame by gently clothes-pinning the leaves and vines to the frame.  This encouraged the cucumber plants to stretch out their runner vines and take hold of the frame.

As you can see, it was a rousing success!  I've even harvested several cucumbers from the vines already.  Our entire garden kind of went out of control due to the rain, but few veggies have been ready to harvest, probably because of the low temperatures we've had all summer (last week we woke up to 50-degree temps!!!)

Lemon Curd

I made lemon curd a few months ago, and it was such a success that I decided to make two more batches!  I got this recipe out of the Get Started Preserving book.  It's a fantastic resource, and like my other canning books, I highly recommend it.

Lemon curd is made with lemons, butter, sugar, and eggs.  First you grate the lemon peel and then slice and juice the lemon.

All of the ingredients (minus the eggs) get heated up until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted.

That gets added to a double boiler, and then the eggs (which have been scrambled) get strained into it to prevent curdling.

After a while, it all thickens, gets poured into jars, and processed for five minutes.  Ta da!

We've been eating it on these Italian lemon waffle cookies.  It's so good!