Signatures, Tomatoes and Zucchini

If I got paid for every time I signed my name yesterday (and the day before), I'd be rich.  School papers are not our favorite thing around here.  I was sat down, while my tomato sauce reduced, and a pen was placed in my hand.

"Sign this Mom," they all said.


You can definitely tell school started around here.  My e-mail inbox fills up daily with stuff from scholastic, Market Day, school newsletters (to save on school paper), and many other e-mails.  Pretty soon the fundraisers will start flowing in, and I'll start to hear "Mom I need $$ for this and that."

Last year, about this time, we were winding down with the garden goodies.  We made lot of salsa, but never canned anything.  I did freeze many tomatoes, but last year we had mostly Romas.  This year, I have many larger types of tomatoes. 

Yesterday my sauce took about 25 pounds of Romas, and that is about 125 of them.  Today I cut up and froze 3 very full quart bags of tomatoes.

My goal is to can them vs. freeze them, on account of our expensive electric here.  I was very pleased with the seasoned tomato sauce I canned.  It has so much more flavor in it, and by canning it myself, has no BPA or other unwanted chemicals.

I canned more zucchini relish and still had some zucchini left over.  I decided to make some healthier school lunch snacks and after school snacks.  They are already getting some delicious garden fresh watermelon.

Yum!

Potatoes

I think I bought our red seed potatoes for about $15.00 or less.  I didn't record it in my garden journal - tsk tsk.  However, it was worth planting.  

We've enjoyed several meals with them already, and I am freezing red potatoes tonight.  We dug up over half of them, and still have more to dig up.  If you take the cost of a bag of potatoes in the store and compare it to what you can grow and freeze - WOW!  What a savings to our family.  And not to mention how healthy they are.

Once we get a root cellar built, I can put some in there also.

Last year was the first season to plant potatoes.  We had enough to feed us until the season was over, but wanted to prepare more.

Once I invest in a pressure canner, we can also can potatoes.  There are so many possibilities yet.


This year, we succeeded, but will have to plant more varieties.  This year we planted 2 types of white and one type of red.