Its been pretty busy around here...fun and busy! The garden has been extremely productive and some of the spring plants are harvested and gone and we are onto fall planting! In the first row you can see our watermelon hills that we just planted a few days ago that took the place of all the squash and zucchini from spring planting. Then the next bed up you can see the celery looking full and the empty spot is where we had some lettuce and radishes, but that has been worked in with some compost and we planted more lettuce and some spinach and chives. The third row up is where the beans and potatoes used to be and we have harvested all those (getting over 100 lbs of vegetables from that bed alone) and are working the soil with several wheelbarrows full of compost to get ready for more bush beans, bush peas and some arugula. The 4th row is where the sweet potatoes, tobacco, peppers and basil are residing. The 5th row (which you cant see in this picture past the tobacco) has carrots, peppers, eggplant, basil, and some newly planted radishes (planted today). The 6th row has all our tomato plants (we call it the wall of tomatoes) and a row of celery in front of that. The back bed is where the asparagus was planted, but it doesn't get much sunlight because of the wall of tomatoes so I hope it makes it.
This is a close up of the sweet potatoes, they are vining out everywhere and looking really good!
The basil pretty much hides the rest of this bed...but its ok, I LOVE basil!!
Eggplant! I couldn't be happier with this heirloom variety of eggplant! This one plant alone has 4 beautiful eggplants hanging off of it waiting for harvest!
Close up of the celery and onions.
The shade is creeping in on this bed, but this is where we planted the next round of radishes.
Here is one angle of the "wall of tomatoes".
Another angle of the celery and carrots.
Sweet potatoes, with the peppers and tobacco in the back of this picture.
Eggplant.
Prepping the beds with rich compost to get ready for fall planting.
Addie was a big helper today with the compost.
Strike a pose!! Addie loves "petting" the basil, she thinks the flowers are pretty...she used to pick them and I didn't care because we had SO many, but now she has lost interest in picking the flowers she just loves to look at them and smell them.
The bees love the basil too!!
We are trying a new method of composting (well new to us anyway). Compost corral! We were having a hard time with the goats and chickens getting in the compost and moving all 3 of our organized piles together, so we thought we would give this a try with one of the piles just to see how it turned out...we'll keep you updated!!
Slice your eggplant in the desired sizes and lay them on your dehydrating screen.
I placed an additional dehydrating screen on top of the eggplant and placed them outside on the back patio table since it was 100+ degrees that day! Then I brought them inside a put them in the oven on the lowest temperature possible (mine only goes to 170), until they were done. They are done when they are leathery and not crunchy. Eggplant can take up to 20 hours to dry. 
They maintained the deep purple color just beautifully and they didn't discolor too much in the center either. I put them in a freezer safe bag and stored them in the freezer, you can easily store properly dehydrated foods in the pantry as well. I am very excited to use these this winter in casseroles and soups! 
