Everyone has heard the joke about spending $200 to garden for a single tomato. That does happen. There’s a gardening learning curve that every gardener must go through.
The other day I was talking with an Amish man at our farmer’s market about my books and I said that I was sure that he knew everything that I had in one of my books, but he said that there are always things that he can learn about gardening. Wow, even the Amish admit that there are still things to learn.
Giving Up the Fight with Squash Borer
It’s true. Even though I am a seasoned gardener, whenever I start gardening in a new area there is always a learning curve and gardening challenges. For instance, I have had a difficult time growing anything in the cucumber/squash family. Japanese beetles, squash borers, and squash beetles have decimated this aspect of my garden for the past three years. This year, I decided not to plant any in the hopes that the year of not growing them might starve out the pests. I had one wild volunteer plant start growing in my compost pile and I was hopeful for a few weeds. However, it too soon gave up the ghost.
Tomatoes and Potatoes Did Well This Year
We had a bumper crop of potatoes this year and I have about a hundred pounds of them in my kitchen. They’ll remain usable as long as the house remains air-conditioned. (Which the house will, as long as we don’t have an extended power outage like they had in parts of Texas.)
We also have a good supply of tomatoes this year and that means I will be able to put up canned tomatoes. Most years I try to put up various sauces and salsas, but this year I plan to focus on plain canned tomatoes.
How to Can Tomatoes
Here are the basics of water bath canning.
- Sterilize jars
- Wash lids and rings
- Wash tomatoes and cut out any bad spots
- Heat water in a stock pot
- Add tomatoes and allow the tomatoes to sit in boiling water for a few minutes until the skins crack.
- Remove tomatoes from the boiling water and into a strainer and allow tomatoes to cool. You can hurry the cooling process by adding some ice to the strainer.
- Once the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, begin removing the skins and stem ends of the tomatoes and placing the skinned tomatoes into the jars.
- Fill the jars to 1 ½ to one inch of the top of the jar. Add one teaspoon (5 milliliters) per quart (liter) of tomatoes.
- Wipe the rims of jars and place lid and ring onto the jar. (Using vinegar to wipe the rims is not necessary.
- Tighten rings to finger tight.
- Place jars of tomatoes into a water bath canner and cover with water with two inches of water above the jars. If you don’t have the canning rake, you can put towels at the bottom of the canner and place jars on top of the towel to keep the jars from bursting from the heat of the bottom of the canner).
- Bring to a boil and allow to boil at a low boil for 15 minutes.
- Remove jars of tomatoes with canning tongs and place them on dry towels in a location where you won’t have to move them for 24 hours.
- After 24 hours, remove the rings from the jars, label and put them away.
Harvest time, pest prevention, and canning are all activities that many of us gardeners do every summer. Do you have comments or questions about any of these summertime activities? If so, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
I hope this post was helpful. Would you like more information about gardening? Well, here are the books I have written related to this subject!
My Gardening-Related Books
Gourmet Weeds
Purchase a print copy of Gourmet Weeds directly on Ingram Spark
Simply Vegetable Gardening
The Survival Garden
The Four Seasons Vegetable Garden
Help From Kelp
Using Diatomaceous Earth Around the House and Yard
The Perpetual Homesteader 