Preservation day
Jul. 18th, 2014 19:58![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillToday, Amanda came over and helped me stem the tide of produce.
While waiting for her, I went to the irrigation supply store (well, two of them) to get stuff for a client and two replacement sprinklers for the front lawn. Then I came home and hacked down the tall weeds at the corners of the lawn; from first slice to stuffing the green bin completely full was about 20 minutes, which may be some kind of record.
I went on to harvest the last of the potatoes and four juggler's-pin-sized Armenian cucumbers. I guess we'll be eating a lot of salads and tzatziki. Then I ran the tomato sauce (made two days ago) through the food mill to extract the seeds.
When she got here, we picked a week's worth of tomatoes -- I estimate about 25 pounds, and we didn't touch the cherry tomato. Staggering in, we started by canning fifteen pints of tomato sauce left over from Wednesday's efforts, then she pitted the second harvest of nectarines while I blanched and peeled a load of Podarok Fei tomatoes (they're very solid, so I figured I'd try canning them whole). She helped me can those up as well, and we ran those dozen or so pints with two pints of juice and a leftover pint of chicken stock that didn't seal two days ago. They all did just fine.
The nectarines are almost all frozen and in bags now, and the only urgent thing I have left is to trim some of the cracked and damaged tomatoes we picked today, so they can go into the freezer for later rounds of sauce. The rest of the tomatoes will be eaten, given away, or tossed into the freezer as well. Thank goodness I spent day before yesterday clearing a third of the chest freezer for things like this...
The plants are still gearing up, so I'm in for more days like this. At least we know that we use most of our preserved tomatoes for sauce (cacciatore, casseroles, and Indian masalas), so I don't have to try to can coherent chopped or whole tomatoes for the most part. Still, I need to make sure I can put some time aside every week or two to cope with the bounty which has finally descended on us.
While waiting for her, I went to the irrigation supply store (well, two of them) to get stuff for a client and two replacement sprinklers for the front lawn. Then I came home and hacked down the tall weeds at the corners of the lawn; from first slice to stuffing the green bin completely full was about 20 minutes, which may be some kind of record.
I went on to harvest the last of the potatoes and four juggler's-pin-sized Armenian cucumbers. I guess we'll be eating a lot of salads and tzatziki. Then I ran the tomato sauce (made two days ago) through the food mill to extract the seeds.
When she got here, we picked a week's worth of tomatoes -- I estimate about 25 pounds, and we didn't touch the cherry tomato. Staggering in, we started by canning fifteen pints of tomato sauce left over from Wednesday's efforts, then she pitted the second harvest of nectarines while I blanched and peeled a load of Podarok Fei tomatoes (they're very solid, so I figured I'd try canning them whole). She helped me can those up as well, and we ran those dozen or so pints with two pints of juice and a leftover pint of chicken stock that didn't seal two days ago. They all did just fine.
The nectarines are almost all frozen and in bags now, and the only urgent thing I have left is to trim some of the cracked and damaged tomatoes we picked today, so they can go into the freezer for later rounds of sauce. The rest of the tomatoes will be eaten, given away, or tossed into the freezer as well. Thank goodness I spent day before yesterday clearing a third of the chest freezer for things like this...
The plants are still gearing up, so I'm in for more days like this. At least we know that we use most of our preserved tomatoes for sauce (cacciatore, casseroles, and Indian masalas), so I don't have to try to can coherent chopped or whole tomatoes for the most part. Still, I need to make sure I can put some time aside every week or two to cope with the bounty which has finally descended on us.
