What a haul! Both from the garden and from Grandma!
I’ve never trusted pressure cookers, either. I know; it’s weird.
I want to try my hand at building a solar oven; not this summer, but in a NORMAL summer.
I’m going to be jumpin’ through my butt when all of my tomatoes come in. 30 plants, all loaded from top to bottom, just waiting to ripen up. They shouldn’t ALL ripen at once, but after the season we’ve had, I do not trust Mother Nature to be kind!
I did 30 pepper plants, too. The jalapenos are doing great, and the Fat-n-Sassy bells are also loaded. Cornon de Toro is looking wonderful, as are Banana Bill; both are sweet frying peppers.
We’ve gotten 3” of rain in the past two days and FINALLY have temps in the 80’s and 90’s, so I think my garden will finish off just fine. :)
When we had to dump a whole lotta pepper plants at work (we always have extra pepper plants; it’s a planned thing) I had my staff save all of the small peppers on them before they went to the compost pile. I had a grocery bag full of Yellow Hot Wax and Gypsy peppers and I made the most awesome pepper salsa for us to eat at work.
We also have three scruffy elderberry bushes growing in the fence line. I gave the maintenance guys strict orders to not touch them; I’ll harvest those berries when ripe and make us some Elderberry Wine for after hours. There’s an amazing amount of food to eat just in my nursery yard at work.
Waste not, want not! :)
I have a confession ... I am a bad bad bad master gardener. Yes I love heirloom tomatoes. And outside of heirlooms, I plant only indeterminate plants and religiously pinch, tie and gtow in specialy designed 6 ft cages. This year many of you know I experimented with the red plastic sheet mulch .. supposedly the light wavelength reflected increase yield by up to 30%
Alas ... this anal retentive guy got so busy not only did the record keeping fall by the way side, but even my indeterminate plants did not get staked, pruned or attended to. They are all growing and laying on the ground .... mostly grass because I grow in compost trenches.
Ugly, untidy, terrible looking and .... it may just well be one of the largest tomatoe harevests of perfectly formed tomatoes I have ever had. All through one silly process .....NEGLECT!
I’ve got tomatoes everywhere. Coming out the wazoo. I can’t give them away fast enough. We have more than enough to fill 500 quart jars ... and still they are coming. got 5 5 gallon pails full to drop off at our local community food pantry in the morning. Another 5 pails will be ready by wed for sure.
And the indeterminate plants are still blooming and setting tomatoes like crazy.. Perhaps I will never tie up a tomatoe plant (kinky) again.
There is one common trait though .... the old fashioned rutgers taste better than the rest hands down. My mouth is sore from so much acid ... standing in my garden eating a warm rutgers like an apple. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Neglect ... it does a garden good.