Oh my gosh--those pictures made my mouth water, Paul.

I may have squeeked by, the plants don't look frozen. At least not yet, maybe when they are in the full sun they will start to show signs of frost, but they haven't yet. The egg plants look OK, and they are really tender, and the sweet potatoes look OK, and they are pretty tender as well. Tonight is not supposed to be too cold, but Tuesday is back to cold rainy weather. I have lots of canning to do today, so I better get at it.

13 more quarts of whole tomatoes processing now. I think I'll make the two pails I have picked into sauce tomorrow, then I'm done with sauce.

You have made a lot of it or at least you have been making sauce lots of times.

Found some organic San Marazano Tomato seeds at Tractor Supply. So grabbed a package. Don't know if they will be the same as Tom's, but figured I can't go wrong with yet another package of seeds!

So far I have canned 35 pints of sauce, and 44 quarts of whole tomatoes. I want to make about 5 more pints of sauce.
Claudia, there's both San Marzano, and San Marzano Redorta, I have not tried the San Marzano's Just the SMR's I love the flavor of them fresh, and they make nice sauce too.

What is your favorite thing that you can each year? It would be fun to have each person list all the different things that they can each year. I am still thinking about that cookbook. Maybe everyone could share one of their most popular canning or freezing recipes on here???? If you are all too busy now, we could do that in a month or so when things have quieted down a bit.

Oh then yeah not the same as yours. Mine are just SM's. There is no way I will have to grow everything I have seeds for. Going to be hard to decided next year.

We do not can anything but my DH would like to. He grew up with his grandma's and his mom canning stuff and making jelly.

Most years I have peaches and apples to can, My mature peach tree died this year, so no peaches to can. I usually made a few jars of peach pickles, and the rest were just canned in a light syrup. There is no crop of apples this year either, so no applesauce. I used to make a lot of apple butter, and peach butter, but I don't eat much of that stuff anymore, so don't think I'll be making any when I do have them. This year I will mostly be canning tomatoes in sauce, whole, and some soup. I may can some sweet potatoes, as they last a long time that way. We'll see. Some years I get apricots, but haven't had a good crop of them in 3 years. I have a newer more cold hardy variety of apricot that should start producing soon. Some years I can cherries, but ususally now I just freeze them. Some years I make Bread and Butter pickles, but I still have a bunch of them on hand, so I didn't make any this year. I get most of my recipes for canning either from a "Ball" canning book, or a book titled "Putting Food By" Written by Ruth Hertzburg, Beatrice Vaughan, and Janet Greene from 1975.

I've only canned tomatoes in various forms. This was my first year for canning ANYTHING! I'm a city girl by heart (born and raised in Chicago on a 25' wide lot with a backyard that was about 10' x 10').

But I had so many tomatoes this year, I couldn't resist trying my hand at canning. I'd taken a class offered by Master Gardeners a while back, and followed recipes carefully. My favorite thing I canned this year was tomato jam. It was just the perfect combination of sweet/spicy/savory. I will look up and post my recipe shortly.

Can't wait to see other recipes.

Thanks to Tom and Linda for starting the Ball rolling (no pun intended).

Tom, I would love to see the recipe for the peach pickles. My Mom use to make a few and they would be served at Thanksgiving dinner.

Linda, that tomato jam sounds really interesting. I can't wait to try it.

My favorite thing to can is probably salsa... we not only use it with tortilla chips and on tacos and the like, but in a lot of different recipes, meatloaf, Spanish rice, etc.

Karen, your idea of a cookbook is a good one -- how about using Cubits? I actually also have a Cubit started that I've been putting recipes on, I could open it up so we can all post on it and share our favorites. (Right now I still have it set to "private.") Give me a day or two to go there and change the settings, I'll post here when it's open. Sounds like a fun idea!

Sandy, I have no idea what Cubits is, but if you think that would work, I'm all for it.

My tomatoes are still going strong. If there is interest I could post my late wive's Chili Sauce Recipe. It is great in meat loaf, with roasts, with scrambled eggs, etc. Here are my tomatoes............
Orange Wellington


Sun Sugar


Sweet Million

Paul they look delicious.

Still lovely looking tomatoes there. Love the looks of those orange ones.

Many of mine are still going but others have given up and ready to be pulled.

Sun Sugar is my favorite cherry type tomato. The Orange Wellington is one of my favorite large ones. Flavor is mild and sweet which I like but I also like those with a little more acid. It is very meaty with a small seed cavity and a tender skin.

Sounds really good!

I tried Sunsugar this year and I love it. Always liked Sungold, Sunsugar is much better. And Sweet Million I plant every year, always tons of tasty fruit.

I like Sweet Million also. I does crack a little more than some in my garden.