Old Friends, Yellow Tomatoes and Salsa!

My tomatoes didn't perform as well as I had hoped this year. We had plenty to eat fresh, but not enough to freeze or can any. There just weren't many tomatoes on each plant. I'll admit that I grew too many different heirloom varieties with too few plants of any one kind. There were never very many tomatoes of the same kind ripe at any given time.

Just as I thought we would not have any fresh garden salsa or spaghetti sauce this year, we ran into a dear old friend at the grocery. She only grew one kind of tomato and had a gazillion of them! She invited us over to pick some. Here is what we picked:

They were organically grown, and as you can see from the picture, they were yellow tomatoes. Could we still make salsa without red tomatoes? We were up to the challenge.

These friends are a generation older than me and were neighbors of mine growing up. More summer days as a boy were spent playing on their farm than at my own house, so it was great talking with them and catching up on how each other's families were doing. I think their gardens were the first I ever saw as a youngster. What used to be an acre or more of vegetables is now just a small plot, but they are still better gardeners with that tiny garden than I am with a larger one. Their 6 tomato plants produced far more than my 30 plants! That is a bit humbling for me, but I was so glad to get to see them (and glad to get the tomatoes!) We said our goodbyes and headed home to process the tomatoes!

It was getting late in the day already, so the whole family pitched in to make to work go faster. My daughters did a great job getting the skins off the tomatoes and cutting them up.

Renee and I mixed their bright yellow tomatoes in a large pot with the other salsa ingredients. It instantly smelled delicious. It didn't look quite as appetizing. The other ingredients changed the color to an orange-brown.

We canned 10 pints of this odd salsa as well as a few pints and a few quarts of yellow spaghetti sauce, which looked equally as strange.

The only thing that didn't look odd was one quart of plain tomatoes that we will use in chili.

That jar looked fairly pretty, but more resembled canned peaches than tomatoes. I wish we could have canned more of the plain tomatoes - now I'm sounding greedy.

It was quite a blessing to get these tomatoes in the first place, and to get to visit with the farmers who grew them.

By the way, although it looks odd, the salsa tastes great!

No More Melon Worries and Lots of Salsa!

I no longer have to worry about my cantaloupe being eaten by the animals, but not because I've put up a fence or done anything to stop them. I don't have to worry about them because there are NONE LEFT! Last night the raccoons ate ALL OF THEM!

I know it was raccoons this time by they way the melons were eaten. The flesh of the melons were scooped out. I could see their claw prints on the insides. One of them just had a small hole in the outside, but the entire inside was scooped out.

I bet that took some time to eat. It was left about 20 yards away from where it was grown. I can just imagine that there were several raccoons that did this and one raccoon managed to "pick" this one off the vine and drug it to the middle of the yard so he could have it all to himself while the others devoured them right on the vine. They didn't seem to care if the melons weren't even close to being ripe. They ruined EVERY one, even the smaller ones.

Why did the raccoons do this? Last year we got to enjoy our sweet Ambrosia melons. I think the raccoons left the cantaloupe alone last year because they were too busy eating my corn. I had planned to put up a fence around the corn this year but since I didn't find the time to do so, I didn't plant any corn.

Now it is obvious that a tall fence or an electric fence is in order to be built around the entire garden! More on that later.

As for now, we are focusing on what we do have from the garden. Last night we made 17 and a half pints of garden fresh salsa!

We had enough tomatoes for that many jars because we replaced the tomatoes that were lost from the forest animal party buy buying some extra tomatoes at the farmer's market. I guess now we will have to buy cantaloupe there too!

Pickle Making Time!

Evidently my family are creatures of habit. Just as festivals and holidays are celebrated at the same time each year, I now declare the first weekend of August as Pickle Days!

Without realizing it we made our garden fresh pickles on the same weekend this year as we did last year. Last year we were beginners and broke a couple of jars adding them to the hot water. This year we felt like pros since we didn't break any jars and unlike last year, we actually had the tools you are supposed to have for canning.

We made Bread and Butter Pickles and processed 9 jars.

I planted the cucumbers a bit late this year, so we don't yet have enough to make a huge amount of pickles. The plants are all doing well and we have brine left over, so I hope to make more bread and butters later this week. The dill pickles will have to wait another week or two.

I guess I'll have to extend the official Pickle Days Holiday to include all of August!

Beginner Pickle Maker Breaks Jars!

The above title reads like a newspaper headline doesn't it? My family had so much fun making pickles that even when we had a jar break, we had a good laugh about it. I was quite surprised the first time it happened but now I know why all canning directions say that you need to have "hot" jars and you must put "hot" liquid into the packed jars. They never say why you need to do each step on the directions! Obviously if the jars are not hot, the extreme temperature change that occurs when putting the jars into the boiling water can (and will) break the jars.

The first time it happened, as pictured above, we were making dill pickles. I noticed it right away because I was putting the jars in one at a time. The 2nd time it happened, we were making Bread & Butter pickles and this time I had discovered that you can lower all of the jars in at once (remember, I am a beginner). This time we didn't know the jar was broken until after the processing time was complete. What a mess! We don't have a range hood so the whole kitchen was sticky because the steam carried the sugar!

Even with our beginner mistakes, we had fun making the pickles. We have eaten several jars of the dills already but are supposed to wait a few weeks before opening the bread and butter pickles.

The whole family took part in making the pickles and my daughters had a great time!