If you like to waltz with tomatoes....

The tomato production around here is... insane! We've been canning dozens and dozens of quarts of spaghetti sauce almost every day of the week!

Mom and I started picking tomatoes before 8 am this morning. We brought one van load home to the other girls, who started processing, then we went back to the garden, and picked a few more bushels, only to return around lunch time to the whole house covered in tomatoes. (All the pictures for this post were taken today.)

Tomato sorting -
This one to process immediately...
This one to ripen for tomorrow...
This one to sell...

Steve making tomato paste...

Liz and Joanna, busy with spaghetti sauce in the makings...

Dad just finished screening in our back deck and turning it into a summer canning kitchen! YEAH! Now instead of heating our whole house while we cook down things like spaghetti and apple sauce, pots can be simmering on the wood stove out there. The thermometer read 117 degrees out there when this picture was taken!

And now it's 12:20 am... There are 54 quarts of spaghetti sauce cooling on the counter and another 20 quarts still simmering. We'll finish those first thing in the morning... And hopefully we'll also sell the 8 crates of nicer tomatoes stacked in my office!

Liz wants me to remind anyone reading that you are always most welcome to show up with a couple extra kettles and a paring knife! : ) We can't promise to look impressive or be in the best mood, but we'll be thankful you arrived!

If only we were vegetarian...

Seriously, if we were vegetarians, we'd probably think that we were in Paradise! The amount of produce to harvest, to process, to EAT is astounding! We feel overwhelmed with work, but we know that we are blessed! And we're gladly trading help with harvesting and processing for a share in the bounty! Anybody want to spend a day digging carrots? Or winnowing wheat?

There are always new ways to do things at our house.
Above: Liz and Julia (a neighbor girl) picking peaches from 'Zaiah's backhoe scoop!

The beginnings of peach preserves

Our onions usually do well. So we planted a lot.
Well, this year they did better than usual, so we have onions drying in long, long rows
in one of the neighbor's 250 ft. long barns!
And when we get bored, we sit around and make onion braids...

We've discovered a solution to part of our produce "problem" - a local Amish produce auction where they sell your produce to grocers, etc for a small commission. We also find it a good way to acquire some of the items that we didn't plant this year (like zucchini!). We took half a car load of produce to get rid of and came back with a car stuffed from floor to ceiling, plus an extra $100 to boot! Who can resist a case of 25 organic eggplants for $3.00? Or 50 organic bell peppers for $4.00? (Now that our 600 bell pepper plants are producing, I know better than to think we'd ever need to buy another pepper!!)

... And then there's watermelon. For as long as I can remember, watermelon was a special summer treat we had a few times a year. This year, the Anchor boys' home that my brothers work for decided that they would plant a field of watermelon for the boys to work in! That results in 'Zaiah's red truck pulling up each week with 300 watermelons on it. After unloading them in a huge pile in the basement, he smiles as he drives away saying, "Well, I hope that you can figure out where to sell them this week... I'll bring another load next week!" So we sell watermelons to grocery stores, and neighbors, and at the auction, and... then when nobody else wants to buy them and another load is about to arrive, we all have generous pieces!

(Above: When Sam's friend, Ben came to stay for a week and help us in the garden, they decided that they would each try to eat a whole 25 pound watermelon a day! They came close to reaching their goals. Needless to say, for once, they didn't need much lunch!)