Storing the Garden’s Bounty

Between the heat we had and the rain we have not had in the last few weeks, our garden is about finished. Except the pumpkins. Those babies are still going strong! The tomatoes are growing and getting ripe, but could use a little more rain to help them finish the season strong.

Farmer Doc and I have been doing a lot of canning and freezing around here to store all the good stuff that has been coming out of our garden. We spent our entire day on Labor day canning tomatoes and cucumbers. (Well, except for the part of the day when he had to go deliver a calf. Nothing like a laboring cow on Labor Day!)

This was the first time we had used the Sauce Master to deal with our tomatoes. Holy smoke – why did we not get one of these earlier?!? This beats the HECK out of blanching, skinning, and seeding the tomatoes… Just wash them, chop them up into quarters, toss them in the hopper, and crank away!