2021 Garden Thread
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We dip them in boiling water to deskin them, there's a proper term for this, but at 530am it's eluding me at the moment. Then we vacuum pack and freeze. We've found them a few years old in the freezer and they're still good.
Congratulations on the abundance, Mrs. Clancey. Tomato sauce freezes just fine, and that's my preferred method for preserving it. I do can on occasion, but one needs to be sure to follow a recipe approved for canning (usually involves adding acid of some sort to ensure a low enough pH) and have the right equipment (large pot, new lids, and the like). You'd have to be sure to adjust any canning times for your altitude if you did undertake it. Higher altitudes require additions to processing time.
Having given my public service announcement, I'll reiterate that freezing is just fine and doesn't require as much attention to safety. You can even freeze whole or quartered tomatoes and thaw them later for sauce making. The skins will come off fairly easily after the freezing/thawing cycle.
Thanks I am doing some reading on how to can right now..Thanks for the lowering of the PH thing with citric acid..Just reading about it for now and not that ambitious at the moment..but maybe later I will get a itch maybe--lol..Thanks so much..clancey
I need to start cooking tomato sauce because my tomato plants keeps growing more tomato's--Here is a picture of the plant and I gave my neighbor 6 more tomato's and they love em...clancey
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lol--no came from the store too hard so I am trying to get them a bit softer..lol----This plant might in the end give me avocado's the way it is producing and now i have 8 more and I really need to get the sauce together so that I can do something with it..Once they start turning colors--they get on with life and ripen quickly..."yea avocado's came off of the plant after I fed it my magic ingredient"--lol thanks..clancey
Those are some really nice looking tomatoes, Mrs. Clancey. You’ve done a great job with your plant!
We’re still getting an abundance of cherry tomatoes off our plants (I need to harvest more this evening if it cools down a bit), but the large slicers are pretty much past. Some plants I’ve pulled out. Others I’ve pruned back to let new suckers grow for the fall. I have a few that I started in the summer that are beginning to flower now.
The Roselle/Hibiscus Tea plants in the cinderblock bed in our back yard have begun to flower. (They are daylight sensitive and don’t flower till the days start getting shorter.). The first picture was the first day I saw a bloom. I had been thinking that the height of the bed combined with the height of the plants would necessitate my hauling out a ladder when it came time to harvest calyces for tea. Now that more calyces have formed, though, the plants are bending over from the weight. The blooms are small, I’m enjoying having the view of the plants through the dining room window. The red calyces are pretty.
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We’re still getting an abundance of cherry tomatoes off our plants (I need to harvest more this evening if it cools down a bit), but the large slicers are pretty much past. Some plants I’ve pulled out. Others I’ve pruned back to let new suckers grow for the fall. I have a few that I started in the summer that are beginning to flower now.
The Roselle/Hibiscus Tea plants in the cinderblock bed in our back yard have begun to flower. (They are daylight sensitive and don’t flower till the days start getting shorter.). The first picture was the first day I saw a bloom. I had been thinking that the height of the bed combined with the height of the plants would necessitate my hauling out a ladder when it came time to harvest calyces for tea. Now that more calyces have formed, though, the plants are bending over from the weight. The blooms are small, I’m enjoying having the view of the plants through the dining room window. The red calyces are pretty.
End of season is approaching. I will be out trimming the tomatoes tops and removing some foliage to improve light and air through the plants. Shorter days and cooler nights have brought in powdery mildew on the squashes. This may be the last week for the zucchinis.
Its been a while, but I wanted to show off some pictures of the garden! its been thriving this year!
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Photo was taken just after we pruned a little bit back. The Marigolds were OVER THE TOP HUGE! They were mutant!
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Finally able to walk through the veggies.
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The Native plants have started to fill in, and its looking great! So many bees this season!
Photo was taken just after we pruned a little bit back. The Marigolds were OVER THE TOP HUGE! They were mutant!
Finally able to walk through the veggies.
The Native plants have started to fill in, and its looking great! So many bees this season!
I wish we had cooler nights, but we still had some mildew. Just cut back a lot, and we will see what happens. I don't understand how people have more than 1 zucchini plant.... so many zucchini this year! We have made about 30 quarts of tomato sauce this year so far.... mmmm
Dob--you wonder about one zucchini plant for people for too many of the little zucchini's in your area and I am wondering about my one tomato plant and will it every stop growing tomato"s for they just keep coming--today 12 more and last week 15 of them and now there are still maybe 30 green tomato's still turning---is this normal for just one tomato plant? For this is the very first thing that I ever grew in a garden and really do not know---the neighbors love me--every time I see them I give them some more tomato's and now i am thinking of going into business here--kidding . Yes I sure stopped feeding them my special ingredients.. clancey
Nice to know and I better get a thirty gallon trash can to keep them all in--lol...Anybody want to buy some of old clanceys tomato's --kidding....gosh...I should open up a store front here...clancey
It looks like you are making excellent use of your space, Dobish. Those photos are great. Thanks for posting them.
Zucchini remains a challenge for me. I had four plants this year and did produce enough that I still have some in the freezer, but we could have used much more. I never felt overwhelmed (the way I did with cucumbers where I gave those away at every opportunity after filling all my pickle jars). We have such intense Squash Vine Borer pressure down here that it’s hard to keep plants going for any period of time. I had to cut borers out of stems by hand and keep burying stems to manage. The borers even get into my butternut squash which is supposed to be resistant. Oh well, ”resistant” is not the same thing as “immune.”
Your butternuts over your walkway look great. It’s beautiful now with those fruits hanging down, but I bet it was stunning with the blossoms, too.
tomatoes were literally a washout this year, probably 5-6 on four plants, folks who went with containers got full bounties.
Dobish, the gardens look great. It's come a long ways since putting up the new addition. The raised beds are impressive. Are they lined?
We finally had rain in the past 2 days, about an inch a day. You can hear the plants and trees giving a collective sigh. But with the rain has come cooler nights in the low 50s. Our tomatoes are winding down quickly. I did a large picking before the rains and will be pulling out some plants this week. The Caurulinas produced big tomatoes, but many had yellow shoulders and the plants are done. The Pomidoro Squisto had serious blosssom rot in the beginning, but settled down and has produced cascades of 4" paste tomatoes. These are almost all meat, with little seeds and juice. The flavor is excellent. We have been making fresh salsa with them and ingredients from the garden. I pulled the greenhouse PS but have left a few outdoor ones to see how they fare this week. We have canned 20 pints of sauce so far. Will stop around 30. The Celebrities seem unfazed and just keep putting out big tomatoes, the Early Girls too. The Sungolds and Sweet Millions are done. They started splitting as soon as the nightime temps dropped into the low 50s. Our peppers still are producing pretty well, but the eggplant is probably finished.
Cukes are approaching the end, except in the greenhouse where I am still picking 3-4 a week. The kosher dill pickles turned out great. I am spoiled by them. The zucchinis are struggling with powdery mildew, but still producing a few. I have sprayed everything with neem oil to keep the PM from spreading. The delicata is done, it wasn't the best year for them after the June heat bomb, but the butternuts are producing many huge squash. They are almost too big. The Hales Best cantaloupe is also winding down . I picked the first one before the rains and we will try it today. Next year I will go back to Sarah's Choice. Winter lettuce, carrots, beets, cabbage crops are doing well. The spinach bolted, will try again with a new planting this week.
We finally had rain in the past 2 days, about an inch a day. You can hear the plants and trees giving a collective sigh. But with the rain has come cooler nights in the low 50s. Our tomatoes are winding down quickly. I did a large picking before the rains and will be pulling out some plants this week. The Caurulinas produced big tomatoes, but many had yellow shoulders and the plants are done. The Pomidoro Squisto had serious blosssom rot in the beginning, but settled down and has produced cascades of 4" paste tomatoes. These are almost all meat, with little seeds and juice. The flavor is excellent. We have been making fresh salsa with them and ingredients from the garden. I pulled the greenhouse PS but have left a few outdoor ones to see how they fare this week. We have canned 20 pints of sauce so far. Will stop around 30. The Celebrities seem unfazed and just keep putting out big tomatoes, the Early Girls too. The Sungolds and Sweet Millions are done. They started splitting as soon as the nightime temps dropped into the low 50s. Our peppers still are producing pretty well, but the eggplant is probably finished.
Cukes are approaching the end, except in the greenhouse where I am still picking 3-4 a week. The kosher dill pickles turned out great. I am spoiled by them. The zucchinis are struggling with powdery mildew, but still producing a few. I have sprayed everything with neem oil to keep the PM from spreading. The delicata is done, it wasn't the best year for them after the June heat bomb, but the butternuts are producing many huge squash. They are almost too big. The Hales Best cantaloupe is also winding down . I picked the first one before the rains and we will try it today. Next year I will go back to Sarah's Choice. Winter lettuce, carrots, beets, cabbage crops are doing well. The spinach bolted, will try again with a new planting this week.
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It's good to hear that you got some crops. You've had a wet summer. My SIL north of Boston has been complaining most of the summer about rain. Her tomatoes were a washout too, in containers.
My rain guage has been at overflow for the last 3 months. I was a yard sale in Hull, MA las week and the guy there had a flourishing garden tomato garden, roma, slicing, etc all in pots hung to main center line.
I've got my winter garden started, traditionally LaborDay around here. I planted my Collards a couple weeks before LaborDay (to see if I can get a harvest a little earlier). Seems like I used to have fresh greens with our Thanksgiving dinner several seasons ago but not lately.
We have been dumped on with the rains here. And like mostly, it's 'hurricane rains' with inches at a time. Last couple, were like 4" in 40 minutes type stuff, then none for a time. It's hard to farm around here.
We have been dumped on with the rains here. And like mostly, it's 'hurricane rains' with inches at a time. Last couple, were like 4" in 40 minutes type stuff, then none for a time. It's hard to farm around here.
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