Gardening Gardening

A method I learned from I guy I used to work with;

Wash them when ripe and put them in freezer bags and put’m in the cellar freezer.
They freeze up like cue balls.
Mid Krappy winter weekend, take them out on Friday night and let them thaw a bit. Saturday pull the skin and any stem off and put the rest in a pot. Season and simmer down, scooping seeds once in a while.
Put it on the deck to cool and Sunday start the simmer process again. When you get to about 1/3 the original volume of the pot you’ve got sauce.

It’s a perfect side project for dinner around January 10th.

 

Mrs M2 just put this variety on the calendar for April 2020

 

Pollinated 4 weeks ago today.
Just starting to turn more orange.
This plant has two major vines and the other has fruit not quite as big, but a little rounder.
I haven’t measured yet but I’m guessing it’s 150 to 180 lbs

 

My sauce recipe, for anyone so inclined, is to pick and fill 5 one gallon zip lock bags with ripe tomatoes. I cut off the tops and freeze them (I freeze enough for making a batch a week), thaw overnight (five bags of frozen tomatoes will not fit in one 5 gallon pail), first thing in the morning - dump out excess water, and put them in a large stock pot with a cut up medium size onion, 2/3 cup white vinegar (or lemon juice), 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tbsp canning salt, and 1 hot pepper, such as a habanero. Heat enough to soften everything and then mix it all to a puree in the pot with a hand blender, boil off to desired thickness while stirring occasionally, place in quart sized jars, then process in hot water bath for 40 minutes. This makes 8-10 quarts depending on amount of liquid left after the boiling/stirring phase. If I am short on time the sauce may be thinner than normal, but I compensate for that by cooking it down later when we finally use it.

This is a very easy sauce to make, just takes a little time, but as they say in Italy: "no time, no sweat, you got no sauce." We find it superior to anything we can get in the store. Since learning to make this sauce, spaghetti night is a weekly highlight and dinner staple in our home. It never gets old. When cooking the sauce for spaghetti I add 4-5 cloves of our garden garlic, one pound of venison italian sausage, and maybe some kale, zucchini and mushrooms, depending on what I have available.

We use this sauce throughout the year for spaghetti, lasagna, bloody mary mix, and tomato soup. Sometimes when I crack a jar, I drink some of it like a V-8. The best result, in terms of flavor, comes from using a wide variety of tomatoes. This year I am using brandywine, big boy, black krim, marglobe, carnival, roma, sun gold, red cherry, and lemon boy.

 

What I make is closer to a juice than sauce. We use it to make chili, cooked stuffed peppers in the crock pot (those I stuff and freeze a lot of). Also use it in vegetable soup. I do sometimes make sauce but generally just the juice/puree and pints of salsa.

 

That is a thing of beauty, Jason!
I didn't get hardly any peppers this year.
I think i stunted them with wood chip mulch

 

Been there! I hurt my soil with wood shavings from the chicken coup. It wasn't enough poop to help. The shavings didn't break down quick enough.
We’re swimming in peppers! And my watermelon are huge!
I’m looking forward to a batch of scratch made cole slaw!!

 

I go away for a few days and the garden goes wild and crazy.

 

It’s a boy!

 

Picked a few 'maters and itailian frying/roasting peppers this morning .

 

Fantastic! My tomato plants have officially chit the bed. Peppers and watermelon going strong. Second planting of lettuce never took well.

 

You Stihl might be able to plant lettuce. My Penn State book says August 20 for a late planting date here but if we have a warm fall it might make it.
edit. If you like it spinach can be planted now too. Makes for a great salad.

 

Some reason not getting any Alerts from this thread anymore?

Careful WS as one of the neighbours down the road was telling me something was digging up her plants? Set up one of my cameras and the first morning he was caught in the act.

She did say she fertilized with something that smelt fishy.

 

Got it. Good call with the fencing.

 

Tomato tomato tomato