Even though we’ve had several hard freezes, we are continuing to harvest here on our homestead. Will and I agree; we’ve never had a more productive garden. What a huge blessing! Especially after our month-late spring. I’m finally done canning corn, and am working on tomato products alternately with carrots now and will get to cabbage products real darn soon. Last night I oven-cooked-down another batch of tomato puree and am chopping green peppers and onions, getting ready to make another batch of spaghetti sauce. I think I’ll add mushrooms to this batch as the last one was plain. How wonderful to have so many choices!
Meanwhile, our apple trees are hanging with ripe apples. We’re down to our Chestnut crab (with beautiful red and gold tasty apples), the Frostbite, and Cortland. If you’ve never heard of Frostbite and you live in a fairly cold zone (Zones 3-5), you want to give this apple a try. It’s crisp, tangy sweet, and has a unique wonderful flavor all its own! Oh, and did I say productive? The Chestnut is a great eating apple too, even though it is classified as a crab apple. You take a bite and the juice runs down your chin. So sweet and wonderful you want to eat a dozen.
Our cabbages are getting simply unbelievable! One has already split so I have to get at them soon. We have one that Will is going to have to carry to the house in a wheelbarrow! It’s that big.
I’ve been saving seeds from some of our favorite open pollinated tomatoes so I can sell a few next spring. It slows down the process of making tomato sauce. But there are getting to be quite a few seeds all dry and nice: Bill Bean, Punta Banda, Cherokee Purple, and our own Early Firefall. I squish out the seeds by hand into a pan, then add water and ferment for about 3 days. After skimming off the floating non-viable seeds and yucky stuff on top, I pour them into a sieve and rinse real well. I dry the seeds on an ice cream pail top with the variety name written on it in permanent marker. Not “professional” but it works for us.
Well, back to the spaghetti sauce. Oh yes, the tick bite is MUCH better! — Jackie
Ginger,
I’m so happy you liked the Hopi Pale Grey squash. They are pretty “wild” but boy do they produce. Don’t toss your immature squash as we’ve found that they keep for a year or more in most cases. They aren’t as sweet as the mature squash but I use them in a lot of different recipes where you add seasonings or stuffings. The real young ones can be used like any summer squash too!
Mary,
We’re working out the kinks in our mini-seed business. Keep an eye on the blog and we’ll fill you in with the details as we figure them out. Right now we’re still harvesting seeds, by hand. Then I want to do germination tests before we offer them.
Yes, we’ve kept tomatoes going all winter in our greenhouse/sunroom. It’s sure fun to have ripe tomatoes in January!!
Jackie, I’d love to buy seeds from you. Will you be letting people know when you have them available on the blog or in the magazine? Also, I’ve never heard of Dakota Pearl potatoes or Frostbite apples. How do you think they would do in WV?
We would love to buy seed from you this coming Spring, Jackie. Especially the Bill Beans Tomato. Please put us on your list. I planted two Hopi Pale grey squash plants a little late this year, from the seed you sent us and they went nutsos! They spread all over in the garden and outside it, even over the top of my old Ford Cargo van ( good thing I didn’t need to drive it this summer). We just let it go wherever it wanted (like we could stop it if wanted to, Hahahaha) We ended up with 17 mature squash and about 50-70 immature ones of all sizes. Pretty good for starting late. Maybe the extra rain we had this year in Colo. helped. They are a wonderful variety. Thanks so much for turning us on to them.
Ann,
We’ve found our Bill Bean tomatoes perform well in unfavorable weather like our hot drought last year and spells of rain, cold, heat and drought this year. Plenty of tomatoes both years!!
Betty,
Tomatoes really don’t cross under normal garden conditions as they are pretty much self-pollinating. We do keep our varieties separated by about 6′ and have never had any crossing that we recognized. Other crops like squash are very prone to cross pollinating even when separated by 500′ or much more.
Rick,
While I love Climbing Triple Crop, I think the Bill Bean is better for paste and is a bit more productive. For us anyway. The flavor is similar; very old-time tomato flavor!
All,
The Bill Bean tomato is an old-time Italian tomato given to us by a friend who was given seeds by a many who brought them from Italy many years ago. It is not available commercially. We will have seeds to sell, including Hopi Pale Grey Squash, early this spring for a very reasonable price, including postage. I’ll keep everyone posted when we work out the kinks.
I too am hoping for seeds. The Hopi Pale Grey Squash and I’ve never heard of a Bill Bean tomato, though I’ve gardened all my life. I bought seed for Hopi Pale Grey and they were small and oblong. Nothing like the pictures you showed us. Anyway, would like to buy seed for the squash as well as the tomato. How do you keep your tomatoes from crossing? Or maybe I should ask, how far apart do you plant the different varieties?
Jackie, I hate to be a nuisance, but I save save my own seeds and plant about 50 tomato plants each year. I want really productive and tasty ones. I had 3 varieties of tomato this year and don’t want to grow 4 or more next year. Is the Bill Bean a better tomato for sauce then the Climbing Triple Crop. Is one or the other a better producer or does one taste better??? thanks Rick
Hope to be able to buy Bill Bean seeds from you, but how will I contact you? This website doesn’t let me email you directly unless I’m a BWM subscriber, which unfortunately I’m not.
Last year I took in a tomato plant and it kept nicely thru the winter for planting out in the spring. It shows no signs of slowing down, so I’m thinking about doing that again. Have you tried this?
Jackie,
Where do you get the Frostbite Apple trees? Seems to be a MN tree.
Thanks,
Steve
I am one of those that is waiting to see what you have to sell. A friend just told me that the Cherokee Purple is her favorite slicing tomato, so I’m waiting to buy my seeds from you. I hope you dry lots of Hopi Pale Grey squash, too.
Due to drought our garden was pretty sad this year although I’m still harvesting tomatoes. We got a bushel of sweet potatoes where we usually harvest double that. We’re thankful for every bit we’ve gotten but generally disappointed. For instance, our cabbage rotted and died during the extreme heat.
Where do you get your Bill Bean seeds? I typically plant the usual varieties and am wanting to branch out a bit. I learned that Mortgage Lifter doesn’t like drought but both varieties of Romas did well. Golden Jubilee pretty much did nothing I think 4 tomatoes off of 2 plants. Does Bill Bean do well in unusual weather i.e. too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry?
Rick,
No they aren’t. The tomatoes look similar but the Bill Bean is a regular leaf tomato and the Climbing Triple Crop or Italian Tree tomato is a potato leaf tomato. The Bill Bean is also a meatier tomato. Both have great flavor!! The Cherokee Purple is one of our favorites for slilcing and eating fresh, too.
Jackie, I’m so glad to hear the tick bite is healing…….Comment and question: the Bill Bean Tomato looks like my climbing triple crop tomatoes, are they the same? The triple crop were huge and very good for sauce as well as slicing ( but taste wise I liked the Cherokee purple even more for eating fresh) And please save plenty of seeds as I am sure many of us want to purchase some from you and Will….Bless you, Rick
Hi Jackie,
I enjoy reading what you have to say about the gardening and homesteading. We have finally given up the garden for the year. We kept a few tomatoe plants to just live until the frost gets them. We can’t devote the time in the fall for a good fall garden. I am envious of your lifestyle and am glad that someone gets to do it. Keep up the good writing.
It seems like it has been a GREAT year for cabbage. We were gifted 100lbs this weekend after my wife’s grandparents had already put up 200 quarts of kraut! We filled a five gallon bucket and a 12 gallon crock.
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