Food and Fiber Friday - Harvesting and Canning!

Well...

It will remain to be seen if my efforts have been a cost savings or not, but I am loving my garden. This is despite the fact my back yard, where the garden is located, needs mowing desperately. As in, it should have been mowed a week ago. But work and rain and heat have done me in on that chore.

My corn isn't quite as big as I wanted. And I am having an issue with some blight on a lot of the tomatoes. But as far as the tomatoes go, that's par for the course here in hot and humid North Carolina. I am taking suckers and rooting them for planting to see if I can get a fall crop.

One thing I have been learning from this year's garden (and my first in-ground garden at the home), is I am going to do next year's garden a tad differently. A bit of reconfiguration is needed. But overall, I am fairly pleased with it so far.

So far I have canned about 8.5 quarts of tomatoes and 6 pints of green beans. One thing I have done is to change up how I can my tomatoes. Normally, I quarter and cook them. And one thing I haven't been happy with over the years is how 'runny' it is. 

But, after watching some YouTube videos, I now have some thick tomato sauce!

And the secret?

Ladle out the tomato 'water' and then use my immersion blender and then I have some nice, thick, creamy tomato sauce. Some people do save the water and call it juice, but I'm not that interested in it. 

There are a lot more tomatoes out there on the vines, so I am hoping to at least double my stockpile. I would have more quarts if I didn't get rid of the 'water', but I am loving the thicker sauce much more. And I can't wait for fall and winter to make chili, soups and spaghetti sauce. 

Now onto planning a 'fall' garden - if I survive the heat and humidity of summer!