A New Skill

Our garden this year has been successful. I won't say amazing but I will say successful. We had a good crop of peas. The zucchini has been iffy but is actually starting to come on strong now. Only one of my raspberry plants has produced and every time there is a new berry on it Brockston plucks it right off and eats it. He LOVES raspberries. My peppers have actually done better this year than they ever have. In the past they have been really small but, like the one pictured below, this year they have been fairly good sized.




My tomatoes have taken over my garden. We have about exhausted every tomato recipe that we have. So I decided it was time to learn a new skill - canning. I was lucky enough to get a bunch of jars from Grandpa Morley's house to get me started. And when I say a bunch I mean 100+ jars and I didn't even make a dent in what was still in the storage room. I started with whole tomatoes and did 14 quarts. Then took on the task of salsa - which thus far I have done 9 pints and intend on doing more. I've found that the canning itself really isn't that difficult. It is keeping a rambunctious 20 month old entertained while you can which is the challenge. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Everything I tried only lasted about 5 minutes and then he was tugging at my leg wanting to get into the middle of things. I let him help a bit but it would usually end in someone getting hurt or a huge mess.

I am excited to have a new skill and to not have to waste the fresh tomatoes from my garden. And hopefully build up our food storage bit by bit.

Here is the finished salsa. Mmmmm...