Harvest Monday

Relegated to hang out with the recycling and garbage cans.
Thankfully, this isn't from this year. This technique (or is
it a trick?) did work. Most of these tomatoes found
their way into canning jars. 

Back to the present, here's an interesting mix of summer
and winter pickings. There are still a few eggplant
after this one. This butternut was on the small side, but
went very well with the potatoes, broccoli and beets
that shared my dinner plate.

Each of these beets was a pound. I was afraid
that the may have turned tough, but
was happily disappointed. They were excellent.

The last of the beans were tasty, along with mounds of
broccoli, chard, and tomatoes and jalapenos in last night's stir fry for
today's lunch.

The chard is plentiful and sweet all the
way to the end of the stalk.

Head over to Daphne's Dandelions for more Harvest Monday folks.

A walk around the beds today

We have 3 San Marzano. They are loaded, but always late.

A handful of beans is all that remains from our plants. The
plants have been mostly relocated to the compost pile.

Behind the beans are a few tomatillo plants. We'll get a
few from these.  Tomatillos grow great around here,
producing nicely until is freezes.

The broccoli continues is proliferation. This is a central
head from a Thompson. We have a few of these and
many Packman. The Packman continue to produce load
of side shoots.

The Brussels Sprouts are beginning to form. Will they
make sprouts by the time winter really sets in?

An outstanding head of cauliflower.

..and one that has started to bolt. I'll steam it up just
to make sure it is bitter and horrible.

The cabbage, Danish Ballhead, are really
starting to form heads.

This little Sunshine Kabocha is just a little too late. It
is cute, but won't amount to much.

That little Sunshine, above, came from this bed. It was home
to squash, lettuce, and potatoes this year.

After taking out the squash, I added fertilizer and put
some Broccoli in. I'm curious to see if anything comes o
 something planted out this late. I have another ten plants or so. 

"Sun" dried tomatoes

These tomatoes are sun dried, in as much as the sun is the source of all life in our solar system. With respect to our local frame of reference, we continue to use our oven's drying mode effectively. It takes about eight hours at 145 to turn these Amish Salad tomatoes from their plump selves into their shriveled counterparts. The results are good. I really like the texture and sweetness of a dried tomato. We use them on pizza, in tacos, and really anywhere we'd ut a tomato.

If you have the means to dry, it is a great way of preserving and saving space.

Weights and measures of tomatoes

We picked the ripe tomatoes from the garden this evening and processed them through the, now thoroughly loved, food mill. I did weigh them before processing. I came up with around 30lbs, a couple pounds short I'm pretty sure. That means that the last batch we processed was around 25lbs. There are a few more pickings, assuming they ripen, to be had before we are picked out.

Cans of our labors

Shari canned the tomatoes yesterday, first reducing them a bit more and adding spices.

Tomato Prep

A little water bath to get things started.

The house is filled with the aroma and moisture of reducing tomatoes. This year won't be a repeat of last year's disaster, where we didn't can a single tomato. This year, the weather was seemingly worse, but our preparations seemingly better. Whatever the combination, it worked and is working. Tonight we are putting away our second round of tomatoes. I probably should have weighed them, but I didn't. I'm happy that we'll have enough to see us through the year by the time it is all done.

Two of these heaping were run through tonight.

We bought a food mill a couple weeks ago. I've been eyeing them for a couple years, but couldn't bring myself to buy. It works wonders and has saved us good amounts of time so far. Luke loves it, also, and that makes it worthwhile right there. He and I spent the evening washing, quartering and running them through our new little machine. He tired himself out quite nicely, cranking through what must have been around 20lbs of tomatoes. I didn't weigh the tomatoes, but I did weigh the skins and seeds after we were done, about 3lbs.

Luke dropped the shirt half way through his duties.

The initial product prior to reducing.