I’ll be away from home from September 8th to the 13th, giving a couple of talks at the Lakeland, Florida Self Reliance Expo. Any of you who can attend, please stop by and visit the Backwoods Home Magazine booth, where I’ll be helping Ilene Duffy. I truly look forward to meeting my great BHM family on these road trips. Since it’s a first-time trip to Florida for me, and just a few miles north of Sanibel Island, which is on my bucket list, Ilene and I will be taking a short vacation and hopefully pick up some beautiful seashells and see wildlife we’ve never experienced before.

Will is going to man the homestead and (hopefully) keep the garden’s produce from freezing. So as soon as I get back, I’ll once again hit the harvesting and canning in earnest.

Today Will is cutting our last hayfield away from home. Yesterday he cut two other fields. All we have left is one small field of second crop clover here at home and we’ll be done. Hooray! We’re supposed to be having 4½ days without rain. We’ll see. We’ve heard that before…

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I harvested a basket of Bill Bean tomatoes. The biggest one weighed 4 pounds 3 ounces. And that’s not the biggest one out there! I can’t wait to see how much the big guy weighs. It’s bigger than an ice cream bucket! These are such flavorful tomatoes and so meaty they don’t make your bread soggy when you use them on a sandwich. Mmm, I’ve got half a loaf of whole wheat bread, mayo and…

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— Jackie

3 COMMENTS

  1. Ms. Jackie~
    It was such a pleasure to meet you and attend your informative talk in Lakeland yesterday. I have always been thrifty and creative in the caring for and feeding of my family but you inspire me to do even more. Growing up in New England and as a first generation American I was raised in many old world traditions and methods which I have passed on to my children. I spent many afternoons helping Mom prep bushels of veggies and fruits for putting up. Of course as a kid, I moaned all the way through and now am grateful for this knowledge and memories. There are far too many funny stories of growing up with a Hungarian Mom who could do everything and taught us great lessons in preparing and caring. She could make anything grow. Even had cucumbers and beans growing up on strings to the first and almost 2nd story windows of our house.My full time corporate job has taken me away from these enduring practices. I think especially now and as I have felt in my heart for quite some time it is necessary become more self reliant and prepared. My son’s girlfriend was with me in Lakeland and is very eager to learn as well so I will be passing on my knowledge and also the info from the books I purchased at expo. Sending blessings and thanks. You are a delight!

  2. Howard,

    Thanks for the information on Early Tananas. I’ll check out Denali Seeds’ website. We’re always looking for extra good new-to-us varieties! How is the taste? That’s a big one for us too. I tossed Arctic Blum because of lack of flavor.

  3. I am not sure how far you go back in comments so here is the info about Early Tanana tomatoes.It is an Alaskan variety I believe developed at UAF. The seed source is Denali Seeds on he web as Best cool seeds. They claim it as an exclusive. It is reputed to set tomatoes in the low forties which may be why the variety did somewhat better than the Moravsky for me. We did have a very warm June and July but May was kind of chillyand I usually only run heat if frost threatens.
    Howard

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