We hauled in boxes and crates of tomatoes. Then, yesterday, our friend Sherri came over to help pick the sweet corn. As the birds were starting to get into the Seneca Sunrise we save for seed, not only did we pick the sweet corn I’d planted to eat and can, but also two big patches of Seneca Sunrise too. We picked the North Garden, then drove over to the Wolf Garden and picked there. Thank God, it was a beautiful day. We ended up with several crates of each, plus the back of the golf cart/garden mobile full of sweet corn to can up. I guess I won’t be sleeping any time soon. Ha ha!
Well, today is another beautiful, although cool day, with the high supposed to be 60 F. Not bad for October, though. I’m on the front porch, madly seeding out the tomatoes I’d boxed to seed. Then I’ll be adding more to be roasted and canned up tomorrow. I’m hoping to be able to also get the Victorio tomato strainer going so I can get another roasting pan full of tomato puree to cook down for tomato sauce tomorrow.
This time of the year, especially all that’s going on in the world today, we feel like the ant in the ant and grasshopper fable, rushing, rushing to get ready. But it’s so satisfying to go to the grocery store (with its sky rocketing prices) and think “I don’t need that and that and that!” — Jackie
There is nothing more comforting than a fully stacked woodshed and a stocked pantry. Jackie I want to thank you for posting when you are drowning in chores. Your a blessing and a inspiration to us.
Yep, today is one of those drowning days! I had planned on doing tomato sauce, Mexican sweet corn and salsa. But I ran out of Jackie and am not doing the salsa. The last of the sweet corn is in the canner and it’s time to think about supper. But boy, does it ever feel great to have done so much, even if it’s not what I wanted to get done.
You make plans and life happens. Those who can roll with the punches fare a lot better than those that cannot.
Does it matter if your tomatoes freeze inside or out (providing it is not super cold outside)? Well it might if you want to save seeds but if just putting up for consumption, I think you’ll be okay.
What Muffy and Mittens up to these days?
My daughter and DIL helped me with my garden at their home this summer. They literally could not tell a baby zucchini from a cucumber at first and wondered when the green peppers would get fuller – they wouldn’t because they were green beans! Now they are excited by the tastes of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, proud to have grown the pumpkins they carved, and glad to have roasted pumpkin seeds. It’s a gradual process but I think they will be gardeners for life!
It’s so rewarding to see new gardeners progress from total newbies to excited harvesters. I love it!!
I love that there are so many of us who feel the same way, conserving, caring for the land and relishing the rewards of our work. However, I notice many of us are at least in our 50’s and older and, only know a few gals around me of the younger generation who are doing this now. When the tough times come, the notion that they will ‘just dig up the front yard and raise a garden’ won’t work–as we all know. I’ve shared my gardening and canning lessons with people, like we all try to do, but am observing this self-reliance knowledge/experience being phased out. When the stores fail them, the Plan B will be desperation. Or the power is off and an electric can opener is useless.
One that’s catching on though, is the back yard chickens; they do not require as much work and provide nearly instant gratification. Maybe this will ignite other efforts toward fresh food, wood burning in the fireplace and most importantly, learning.
I sure hope so. I am seeing quite a few younger folks getting interested in homesteading and gardening. Maybe it’s all the tariffs making the news lately and prices skyrocketing in the supermarkets. I wish even more people would join this movement, which I think is kind of a peaceful revolution.
I’m thrilled to hear you are seeing another generation become involved, and who better to learn from than you! Yay! Yep, it brings peace to our souls, and sleep to our tired bodies. Now go to bed and renew Jackie for tomorrow’s salsa, ha!
Yes, I think things are being stirred and will not be getting better in the world-at-large, and mostly not here on this continent. More than ever, I will be leaning on the Lord as my Source. My hubby and I were just talking this a.m. about the division and many things working against American’s self-reliance and self-sufficiency. We need much more people to practice it.
I concur with you, Jackie, when you say at the grocery store, I don’t have to buy that, that, or that! My “larder” is clean, painted, and organized like never before, thanks to my daughter’s hard work. I love when I’m at the grocery store, to also say, I don’t have to buy that, or that, or that! My grocery store shopping is so quick and I don’t spend more than $30 a week. After inventory, my home canning adds up to 840 jars!
That’s great Elizabeth! Isn’t it so rewarding though? I wish my pantry was all organized. Oh well, it’s down there anyway. : )
Yes, my larder is so rewarding to look at. I stand there admiring and glad I put-up food. Now, somehow, I need a storage place at 45F to keep onions, garlic, potatoes, oranges, lemons, limes, mandarins, carrots, and apples! Regards from far north California.
Dear Jackie,
There was nothing more wonderful than pulling into my parents’ drive. I could always smell wood burning in the stove and coffee brewing. The cool crisp air brings back so many memories. They are both gone now but I have a world of knowledge that they passed on to me. Yes, we worked hard but it was a good life. I still have my canning, quilting and a bit of flower gardening. I live in the middle of lots of farmers and I still can buy my fresh produce from them. I pity the folks buying from grocery stores. Now this is a true story, and I challenge anyone to try this test. I make my own bread, and it will mold in three days if I don’t keep it cool. Normally, it all gets eaten before 3 days! But I bought two types of bread at the store; one was white and other was whole grain. I left them on my counter for 8 weeks and they got hard but never molded. They are full of preservatives. Think about what that does to your stomach. It does my heart good to see all your work and teaching to folks. Processed lunch meat will kill you and the processed sugar in cookies, cakes is not far behind. Folks, try to make or grow your own!!
Love your philosophy, Jan!!! What an awful culprit table sugar is. I like the use of stevia and xylitol, and very little of that, at all. Regards from far north California.
I agree Jan. I, too, have seen store bread sit for a month and not go moldy. That’s just WRONG!! All these chemicals in food mix to make a toxic poison that’s causing tons of diseases we never heard of before.
Most table sugar is beet sugar too, and made with GMO sugar beets…plus chemicals. If you must use sugar, use cane sugar. At least that’s not GMO. Yet. Honey is the best!!
I do so like reading your posts. We got down to 33 but no frost. I did have a fire in the wood stove a couple mornings. I have my tomatoes covered just in case. I’m sure we will have buckets of green tomatoes soon. Went to visit friends and came home with tomatoes so tomorrow is salsa. I love canning!
So do I. Today I’m doing more tomato sauce and sweet corn. I’m thinking ditto for tomorrow with (I hope!) celery too. This year I’m feeling like I NEED to put up a lot of food.
Spoken well, Jackie! Let’s keep up the good, hard work, resilient agrarians!
Yep, it’s our peaceful revolution!!
What a privilege to raise all Your photo s show abundance and Hard Work! So many people today have no CLUE about food,where it comes from The importance of nutrition in their grocery purchases one would Think the public learned from the covid isolation inforcements. Empty shelves, lack of services. . Sad to see the world is going backwards in stead of forwards as our forefathers were able to witness. Canning pears today. Hoping the tomatoes ripen before the freeze temperatures arrive here. The cherry tomatoes are huge and green! What with all the other rip varieties ,the sweet corn you probably don’t have Time to save them from a harder freeze. Don’t over work and DO get Some sleep! We all need what you have to say and share. God Bless
Thanks Mary. We did get nearly all the sweet corn canned up. It had gotten freezing but was still ok in the cobs, protected by the shucks. I want to get Sherri’s wonderful celery canned up today plus some more salsa. (I use salsa in many recipes besides just using it for salsa.) Even today, I’m seeing empty spaces on grocery shelves or, like Walmart, they are just making wider aisles and not stocking familiar brands. Higher prices every day too. I’m so blessed to have so much hard work so we can eat our own food. There’s never been a recall on MY food!! No E.coli, listeria, chemicals, etc.
What a busy setting your pictures show! I agree that the majority want the “easy life”. Most do not have a clue where their food comes from and how it is produced. Food from a garden, heat from a wood stove, meat from the animals in the barn-NO WAY! I see many people who shop for meals to be consumed the same day – fast food, plastic-wrapped meals to heat, etc. It is gratifying to try to provide for one’s sustenance and some degree of “independence”. I dance to a different drummer, but also realize I cannot completely provide all that I need. I am astounded by the number of people who do not know how to cook even the most basic dishes. I feel at times I’m a relic and wonder if it will ever shift back to “old ways”. Time will tell. Enjoy the fall
Yep, I see the same thing you do. Yesterday, I was in the store and the lady ahead of me had a heaping cart full of instant and frozen convenience food. I mean FULL! First off, I pity her children, who were with her. Then I pity the “civilized” world where this is the norm. Look online and see all the hate posts directed at people who grow their own animals for food. Aww, they’re soooo cute, how can you be so heartless to actually butcher them? We love our animals and give them the best life. But our freezers are also full of chemical free meat. At least our meat was not from steers shoved in huge feedlots where they stand in belly deep manure and eat until they are butchered. Now that’s cruel. But that’s where store meat is from. And I don’t want to talk about what happens to those steers in the factory slaughter houses!
Today, I’m madly canning more tomato sauce and sweet corn with salsa and celery waiting to process. And more corn. And more tomatoes as diced tomatoes…. What a wonderful feeling!! Yep, I’m tired….
I’ve grown the Barry’s Crazy Cherry Tomatoes and that photo is absolutely accurate! Massive production from each plant!
My husband was at a class at the gym this week, the instructor threw out the question, ” So what is everyone harvesting from their gardens now?”. Dead silence until my husband rattled off what we’re picking, eating and preserving. Still silence until one person said, “Well, you can get all that from the grocery stores, without all hard work and time invested. Gardening is a lot of work “. It amazes us that people truly believe that food from the store is as healthy and nutritious as home grown or that our food supply chain will always work. Hard to understand. So thanks for all you and Will do to help people be more self sufficient and healthy.
Yes, unfortunately, that’s the common thought today. Just buy what you want at the grocery store and not work so hard. It seems nobody wants to work anymore. At a job. At home. Raising their kids. I don’t understand it at all! Unfortunately, one day, there’s going to be a time of reckoning.
Even without tariffs the price of food will increase. It makes me sad to think how much food waste due to lack of labor to pick. What incentive do these farms have to plant for the next growing season?
We’re in the 40s at night (more upper than lower) but we need rain. The almost .5 inch we got the other day hardly scratched the surface but did perk up the strawberry plants.
Dusty – even more so when soybean harvest is happening. A lot of folks here, including our household, have dry scratchy throats.
Be a bit before we have a freeze but we’ve been having a fire in the wood stove at night. That massive red elm is yielding a ton of firewood to add to our supply/reserves.
That firewood is such a wonderful thing. Will brought in more yesterday. There’s a big pile in the woodshed plus a lot already stacked up. It’s been very dry here too. That fire in the wood stove sure feels good in the mornings, doesn’t it?
You can’t beat a fire in the wood stove any time of the day. We sometimes have a fire but have a window cracked for the fresh air – you just can’t beat it. IMHO, the heat is also good for your body – the entire room warms up, humans and pets included. No pockets of cold but the bedroom is cooler for a good nights sleep.
Got an unexpected .25 inch of rain today. Better half was in the town about 7 miles from us and got caught in a mega down pour – water standing in the streets.
I love wood heat. The actual feel of the heat plus the satisfaction in knowing you harvested and put it up yourself from the trees on your land.
Isn’t the weather crazy this year?? I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop after our nice, dry fall weather lately.