Tomatoes

Tomato season in my garden ended in October when we got a freakishly early snow. Sadly, my tomato plants were finally looking their best....in October! This photo is from an early morning garden harvest earlier in the summer.

 Since it seemed like my tomato plants would never produce enough fruit for me to can much of anything, I simply put all the tomatoes in the freezer. I got a bunch of tomatoes from my aunt and my cousin and ended up with 16 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes.

 Thursday I took a vacation day from work to can tomatoes. It wasn't until that morning that I counted the bags of frozen tomatoes. I was shocked to find out how much I had to work with. I started removing skins and cooking tomatoes down when Ben walked through the kitchen and asked, why aren't you using the Victorio?  Duh! I was wasting time doing steps the Victorio would do for me. Then I started kicking myself for not having all the tomatoes defrosted . Clearly, I had not thought this through. Regardless, I put my head down and worked the tomatoes.

 The chickens loved the tomato scraps I threw out into the garden for them.

I started at 7am and finished up at 11pm. I took a few breaks in there, but it was certainly a long day. Our whole house smelled like tomato sauce, I smelled like tomatoes and wanted nothing else to do with them. 

But the next morning there was this waiting for me in the kitchen: 27 pints and 7 quarts. And as much as I enjoy canning, it was also really nice to give the canner a good scrub and put it away for the winter.