Tomatoes

This year my tomatoes have produced more than I can keep up with! That's a good thing, because last year I had several big...no, giant plants that didn't produce anything. Come to find out, when I cleaned out my chicken coop, I would throw all the bedding in the garden...duh...I over fertilized them! This is my second gardening season and I must say that our garden has been very successful this year. We gained a little confidence and hope to plant a fall/winter garden!

Getting back to my tomatoes...I only have 8 plants: 3 Celebrity, 3 Beef Steak and 2 Cherry's. The only problem I'm having this year is birds! I have to pick before they peck!


This is one days worth of beautiful ripe tomatoes. I've been getting 15-30 a day!The heat has slowed them down a bit, but I'm still getting quite a few.


Colin and Cassie love to help strain our fruits and veggies. This handy dandy gadget separates the skin and seeds from the pulp and juice! I love this contraption. Here they are straining all those big beautiful tomatoes. As you can see the pulp and juice flow down the white slide into the silver bowl and the skin and seed come through a tube into my garbage bowl. Off to the side I am straining the tomatoes. I've been using the heavy pulp for salsa and the finer pulp and juice to make spaghetti sauce.


On the left is a jar of mild, but oh so delicious salsa. A couple of girl friends and myself had a salsa party 2 weeks ago. We combined all of our tomatoes, onions, and a variety of peppers. We added some garlic, black pepper and cider vinegar to taste. We devoured a big bowl full and were still able to can 10 jars! I've made 2 smaller batches since! With the left over pulp and juice I made a couple batches of spaghetti sauce...so far I've canned about 25 jars worth! There's another batch of tomatoes on my table waiting to be processed! Here we go again!