I love Fall for its amazing bounty. This dry hot summer has created a bumper crop of tomatoes both outside and in our hoophouse. Here a few of the 70+ jars of salsa that Joel has put up. He's also canning chopped tomatoes for stews and spaghetti sauce.
One of our hoophouses is devoted to drying things. Here we have all our onions, bundles of grains and now dry beans. This year we tried two black beans for drying, black coco and black turtle. The black coco beans were a lot earlier, but the black turtle more productive. We'll probably need to grow both in the future as we can't depend on having the nice long growing season we did this year. We were moved to try growing beans for drying when we found out that it is almost impossible to find organic dry beans grown in this country. The last bag we bought was from China.
We also have a bumper crop of Italian prune plums this year. The wind storm last Saturday knocked most of them down but we still harvested lots off the tree. Tonight Joel is going to start canning some and then I will make plum jam. This is our division of labor in the family.
I love Fall for its amazing bounty. This dry hot summer has created a bumper crop of tomatoes both outside and in our hoophouse. Here a few of the 70+ jars of salsa that Joel has put up. He's also canning chopped tomatoes for stews and spaghetti sauce.
One of our hoophouses is devoted to drying things. Here we have all our onions, bundles of grains and now dry beans. This year we tried two black beans for drying, black coco and black turtle. The black coco beans were a lot earlier, but the black turtle more productive. We'll probably need to grow both in the future as we can't depend on having the nice long growing season we did this year. We were moved to try growing beans for drying when we found out that it is almost impossible to find organic dry beans grown in this country. The last bag we bought was from China.
We also have a bumper crop of Italian prune plums this year. The wind storm last Saturday knocked most of them down but we still harvested lots off the tree. Tonight Joel is going to start canning some and then I will make plum jam. This is our division of labor in the family.
Hi Margaret - lovely to read of your autumn bounty - that drying house looks interesting. Up here in the North of England we cannot successfully grow tomatoes outdoors and even in greenhouses they can be temperamental. so we have stopped growing them. We have frozen lots of peas, broad beans and runner beans and have made chutney from peaches and jam from plums blackberries and apples. Your tomato salsa looks good - wish I could pop over for a jar.
ReplyDeletePart of success in growing tomatoes inside is a careful selection of varieties that have been bred for greenhouse growing. Many outdoor types don't do well. Although Sungold cherry tomatoes do well either inside or outside and they are my all time favorite for taste.
ReplyDeleteWish you could pop over for some salsa or anything else. If you ever find yourself on this side of this continent get in touch.