BlackCat08 said:Pureed a big batch of Kale this morning and now it's in the dehydrator. When it's dry I'll put it in mason jars and use for green smoothies in the winter.

I don't have all that equipment. Froze mine, looks pretty good. It's nicer to be able to store in jars though. And puree/dehydration pulverizes the worm poop!

Canned 18 quarts of spicy tomato veggie soup with my Dad this morning. We used up two grocery store large paper bags worth of grape tomatoes from his garden. We added diced carrots, onions, hot peppers, celery and a bunch of spices. The tomatoes we pureed with skins on in the vita mix first before cooking it down. The soup came out nice and thick and oh so delicious. We each had a bowl full for breakfast, I added some rice milk to my soup cause I like my tomato soup creamy. He finally gave in and bought a pressure cooker big enough for canning.

Over the weekend we are gonna try and can up some zucchini, pumpkin and a few other large squash he has which are taking over ever counter space he has in the basement. After the squash gets done the golden delicious apples will be next for making applesauce.

Yum!!!

Debra, our food kitchen is only open 1 day a month, & they only accept canned & packaged food......my neighbor stopped & picked up some apples for his pigs.....

Two apple pies and three apple cakes, not all of them made it to the freezer

luvsgrtdanes said:Two apple pies and three apple cakes, not all of them made it to the freezer

Yummy!!!!

You are good to bake in the heat......my grandkids wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies....I made them rethink their plans to jello!

Ground up my dehydrated Kale and reloaded the dehydrator with another batch.

Making another batch of Tomato Jam. This batch is going to be Tomato/Thai hot pepper jam. I'm using a bunch of odd tomatoes not slicing size and grape tomatoes. Found an easy way to peel the grape tomato. Place whole grape tomato in boiling water for about 2 min. Remove onto cutting board and let cool slightly. Cut stem end off and voila the skin pulls right off. I ended up with a little over 6 cups of Tomato pulp so should get at least 4 pints or so of jam.

Still have to make a batch of yellow squash bread to bring to work tomorrow. It's tradition to bring a dish to work on our first day back to school.

Thanks for the hint Karen!

Janice the grape tomato skins where a breeze to do. I did have to skim the foam from the jam as it cooked. I also added a little fresh basil, oregano and cumin, thai hot peppers minced and (a splash of cinnamon and lemon as I took it off the heat) to this batch. I could eat it by the spoonful.

Sounds great to me! I should have enough to try it in a couple of days. Just gave away 2 gallon bags of them, but they are ripening like crazy!

I find I get a really nice harvest of the grape type tomatoes here myself. I am growing Juliets. They are large for a grape tomato and set so much fruit. I am always picking Juliets.

Most years I grow maybe one six pack of paste or sauce type tomatoes. Lately I have been growing Viva Italias. But this year I went nuts on the cooking tomatoes. I not only planted the Viva Italias but also Romas and another simply labeled Italian Plum. Plus I also planted some San Marzanos. Those I have never had before.

So really lots and lots and lots of cooking types. And wow do those ever set fruit. I just picked a big bag of the cookers on Monday and today picked two more large bags full.

Rita your tomatoes sound awesome. I'm making another veggie bed next year to designate to growing sauce type tomatoes. I've run out room in my reg. garden bed because I grow so much leafy greens.

This year has been simply outstanding and of course it is not done yet. The tomato plants have been really healthy and mostly have managed to avoid the usual fungal diseases. The ripe tomatoes started mid July and been going ever since. At peak production I was picking every day and could barely stay ahead of the ripening fruit.

The sauce types are great to grow as they give you so much fruit.

No rain=no fungus......my toms just keep on producing also......had a bunch of yellow pears in my salad last night....

Same here on the tomatoes- can't keep up! And now I've been put in charge of harvesting the abandoned boxes at the community garden. No small undertaking! Taking most of that produce to the soup kitchen. I got a mention in the town garden update post this week for my work in the garden.

phoebesviolets said:Same here on the tomatoes- can't keep up! And now I've been put in charge of harvesting the abandoned boxes at the community garden. No small undertaking! Taking most of that produce to the soup kitchen. I got a mention in the town garden update post this week for my work in the garden.

Good for you but still that is a lot of work.

wow in this heat that is a lot of work