Pruning and Canning

Carol was anxious to start making salsa sauce.  She began by washing the tomatoes,  cutting the onions, cutting the peppers.  While this was going on she started breakfast, boiling the eggs, and making toast.  She ate some and then canned some, etc.

We were almost finished and I got a photo of Carol with the last of the tomato peeling.  I turned them all into juice with the food processer.  We put them in a large kettle and cooked them for nearly an house.  Carol put them in the pint bottles and cooked them for fifteen minutes.

There they are all twenty-nine quarts of salsa.

She then made seven pints of pickled red beets.

This is the salsa and the pickled beets lined up on the counter.  I always print labels with the date, bottle content and I put on most labels Carol's name.

I cleaned the buckets and tubs use in yesterday afternoon farmer's market. I put them away this evening.

I picked this large pineapple tomato for lunch.  Instead of eating it, I decided to let it ripen up a little more.

I picked sixteen burpless cucumbers.  I also pruned large branching and hooked them to the twine trellis.

We drove to Fillmore to deliver a bucket of veggies and to buy some gifts for the family golfing tournament.  We also, bought some groceries at the market.  I took photo of produce for a price comparison that I charged at my farmer's market.  I sold my produce for a lot less.

A plastic box of Juliet tomatoes.

The price of the box of tomatoes.

The price of salad onions.

This evening I tied up the rest of the egg plants on the south side of house six.

White egg plants.

The twine.

Two white egg plants with deep holes made by snails.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Take Down & Planting Week Three

After breakfast I started the take down.  I took down the outdoor Christmas lights.  There were lights on three trees and several bushes.  I stood on a stepladder for the trees.  The lights were wrapped around the branches.  I unwrapped them and wound them in to a ball.  The lights from the shrubs were stored in a tote in the garage.  The light strings are also in a tote.  There are a few more lights to put away.  I will wait until the snow finish melting.

The tray above represents three trays.  The other two have seeds of four plants.  A half tray for the seeds of each plant.  Eggplants, Millionaire purple; Broccoli, Packman; Cabbage, Golden Acres; and Brussel Sprouts, Long Island Improved.

I planted seeds of Tomato, Black Cherry.

After supper, I found some outdated business papers that I shredded.   I filled the bin to the top.

We have a lot of trees on our two acre yard and have a large lawn. It is a place for the grandkids to play.  We have a large garden,  Part of our yard is absent from any landscaping.  We hope to use it for food production.   We also catch the clipping and compost them. 

Comments and questions are welcome.

Beans and Buckets of Tomatoes

Morning chores and breakfast is over we begin picking.  We picked our pole beans and two buckets of tomatoes.  

 We dug all the onions except the copra onion.

I picked these cucumbers yesterday and gave them to the chickens.  With a shovel I sliced them sort of down the middle.

 This is an orange cucumber that is growing in house six.  I didn't plant it and don't know where it came from.  This is the second different tomato plant that we have.

 This tote is prepared for the post office.

 Another bucket of cucumbers for the chickens.  I gave them half.  I then sliced them with a shovel.

There are a lot of tomatoes that are rotting or begging to rote on the vine.  I gathered some of them and gave them to the chickens.  The black hen facing to the right and cast a shadow.  She has her beak into the tomato.

 I filled my back pack sprayer with weed killer and sprayed a bunch of weeds in the west side of our yard.

I collected some Bigtooth Maple seeds.  I should have done it two or three weeks ago.  Most of them have dried.

 I planted the maple seeds in a 1020 tray.  Will be watered tomorrow.

This Jupiter Beard has been quite pretty this summer.  However, it is quite weedy.  I cut it down and put it on the compost pile.

Under the Jupiter Beard there is several saffron plants.  They will soon be blooming.

 It was a surprise to see this eggplant in house six.  There are two of them ready to harvest.  

 Here is the other one.

Another surprise.  We bought this Easter lily in April.  After it lost its blooms we planted in Kidney, glower garden. It began to grow and today it is blooming.

There are two other buds.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Getting Ready to Till

When we got home from the temple, I changed clothes and turned up the thermostat. There were no small screen showed nothing.  I called Andrew who is our furnace man.  He was in McCornick and would stop on his way home.  He would be here in about one hour.

 I then began work on the Viking stool legs.  The draw knife in most cases would tare out to much wood.  I have a rasp on my drill that does a good job of removing wood.  I got all three legs in to a rough shape.  I put a new belt on my belt sander.  it remove would pretty fast.  I had to hold it with the vice.  I got the all sanded.

I cleaned the leaves out of the steps that goes under the house.  I thought that he might need to check the furnace.  He came and pulled off the thermostat and replaced the batteries. I required two double A batteries that we had.  We have a good selection of different batteries.  The batteries fixed the problem.  That took him about five minutes.  He didn't charges any thing.  A couple of days ago the phone batteries went dead.  We should have them Monday.  I checked my email and it said that they will be here Saturday.

I gassed up the weed whip and went after the pepper and eggplants in Robert's garden.  Last time the weed whip was not working well.  Today it worked like new.  I had to replace the whip.  I pulled all the drip tape and cut down the plants.

I had a little bit of time before the 5:30 news.  I used the orbit sander on the stool legs.  I was able to sand the legs.  They will soon be ready for staining.


Comments and questions welcome