Processing Tomatoes

Summer has been cool so tomatoes are ripening later than usual. We plant about 100 tomato plants so that we can process what we need in large batches. We share early and later harvests when there are fewer. This year we were running low on soup stock, tomato sauce and ketchup so tackled replenishing these.

Floradade Tomatoes Ripening Nicely But Leaves Drying Up

Super Roma Tomatoes Producing Well But Leaves Also Withering

Sauce Tomatoes: 2017

We use a Squeezo food processor to separate tomato pulp from seeds and skin. It takes a whole day each to pick a few bushels of tomatoes, manually grind them through the Squeezo, decant and preserve the "tomato plasma", add spices to the sauce and ketchup and can them, clean the equipment and feed what we don't use to the Guinea fowl. This year's totals: 22 quarts of tomato sauce, 31 pints of ketchup and 65 quarts of soup stock. 

Squeezo Processor With Sliced Tomatoes Placed in Funnel, Juice and Pulp Slide Down the Chute and Seeds/skin Comes Out the End

Squeezo Closeup From a Different Angle

Bowl Full of Tomato Skins and Seeds But With Some Pulp

Second Squeezing of Above, Now Much Drier and a Third the Volume

It takes only half an hour to cook these because we separate the plasma from the pulp using a colander which we try to float in the sauce. To keep it from sinking, we bail out the clear liquid that leaks through the holes in the colander. This process does steal some of the garlic, onion and basil flavors from the sauce  but delivers them in the soup stock. We make the ketchup after separating the plasma so that soup stock is pure tomato juice.

The Colander We Found That Works Best for Bailing Soup Stock from Sauce

We use a canning technique that uses a small amount of water in a pan covered by a jar support plate with holes. When the water boils, steam envelopes the jars and exits through two small holes in the lid. We steam these acidic products for 15 minutes once steam exits the lid. 

Canning Technique Where Water Boils under the Plate that Holds the Jars and the Cover Traps Steam to Envelop the Jars.

Difference: Ladled the Left Quart While Tomato Sauce Was Boiling. Right Ladled Out of the Colander With No Boiling (Steam Bubbles Pumps Some Pulp Through the Colander Holes)  

First Batch (18 Quart Pot) of Soup Stock and Tomato Paste (5:3 Ratio)

First Batch of Soup Stock and Ketchup (12 Quarts: 12 Pints or 2:1 Because Vinegar Is Added to Make Ketchup)

Mid Summer Harvest

We spent almost two weeks in California visiting our two week old grandson and his family. Although a few folk looked after our animals and were encouraged to pick veggies from our gardens, we were overwhelmed by what we still had to pick. Summer squash outdid themselves this cool, moist summer and there were over 100 pounds waiting. Four of the Italian zucchini were hiding and grew so large that we're letting them fully ripen so we can harvest their seeds.

Summer Squash Row Harvest

Squash and Cuke Harvest from the Bean Tunnel

Italian Zucchini Growing Through the Fence

Early Tomatoes 

Greenhouse Harvest Included Guinea Fowl and Hen Eggs

Purple Pole Beans and Sweet Hungarian Peppers with Cupcake

Of course we can't eat or preserve all this food so we donate most of it to a homeless shelter, 127 pounds this week. When tomato production peaks in a week or two we'll process them into sauce, ketchup, soup stock and bags of sun dried slices. 

Pears Showing Surface Cracking

 Pears and early apples are disappointing. We missed peak ripeness period of our early apple tree and most of the fruit had fallen and was not suitable for cider. We will make a few pies with these but we have applesauce left over from earlier years so we don't need to make more. We will make pear cider in a few weeks when they mature and hope cracking doesn't hurt the taste.

Overripe Apples on the Ground

Ocean & Beach Mobile

This spring our pregnant daughter asked me to carve a wood mobile for her new little one because commercial ones were primarily made of plastic and fabric. At the time I was learning how to carve birds out of wood and welcomed the challenge. My target for completing the figures was our older daughter's May birthday because she is a wonderful realistic life painter and I'm not. So we shipped 15 figures in early May to give her a few months to paint and ship them to California when the baby arrives.

An Eagle and Owl with Wire Legs and Talons

The Set of Wood Figures Sent for Painting

Closeup of Isa, a Cattle Dog, Our Daughter's Long Time Companion

My first choice was to dangle the figures under a large octopus but both my wife and our new grandson's mom thought this too scary. So we settled on using a tree branch that worked out quite well.

The Octopus I Was Going to Hang the Figures From

Penguin and Clown Fish, Painted

The Owl

A Snow Goose

An Orca

A Bald Eagle

A Seal and Isa

Turtle, Seahorse and Starfish

A Beagle: Added for Wordplay with toddlers (mistaking it for a seagull or eagle)

 The above photos show straightened fishhooks used to hold the figures while painting. A few of the birds kept these so they maintained their orientation. The rest of the fishhooks were removed and replaced with swivels that are easy to attach to fishing tackle snaps with an additional swivel so the figures can be oriented in specific directions. The figures are robust and can be readily handled and their positions switched, then pointed in an appropriate direction.

Outdoor View of Completed Mobile

Mobile Over Crib

Posing

Added Shark and Two Salmon Showing That Figures Are Mounted on Barrel Swivel with Snap so They Can Be Removed for Play and Reoriented Appropriately

Garlic Harvest: 2017

When green garlic leaves fade to brown, it's time to harvest them. It's important to get them out of the ground before tops get too weak to help pull the roots out. Also, as the leaves fade, organisms start eating away the membranes that cover the cloves, exposing these gems to soil. Although dirt readily washes off, bulbs are much fancier wrapped in colorful membrane layers. Also, it's only possible to braid garlic together if the leaves are strongly attached.

Garlic Bed with Parsley Growing Between Rows

Another View Showing Green Garlic Leaves Turning Brown

This year it took six hours to collect about 200 pounds of garlic and stack them exposed to air to cure them. The bulbs must be oriented separately from the leaves so they dry quickly without starting to make "compost". Our new wagon seems to be an ideal tool for curing because the mesh bed allows air to circulate.

Wagon Full of Garlic, Stacked So Bulbs Are Exposed to Air

Knowing that garlic is harvested before the end of July, in early June I broadcast parsley seeds all over the garlic patch. It's now growing very well and by September will be ready for freezing packets of parsley pesto. Last fall the garlic was planted through inches of leaves and other mulch. This spring, some garlic sprouts needed help getting through the larger leaves. Today the mulch has disappeared, processed away primarily by worms, but there was enough left in June to successfully germinate parsley seeds.

Parsley Now Without Competition from Garlic

This year has been cool and wet so garlic scapes didn't appear until later in June. We picked them as soon as they appeared so that the plants' energy goes into the cloves.

Fifteen Pounds of Scapes from the Above Garlic Bed

Summer Starting Well

One spring planting goal is to get major crops in the ground by the first day of summer. We have three staggered plantings of sweet corn, more than 100 each of tomatoes and peppers, Swiss chard, onions, basil, cucumbers, beans, winter and summer squash, kale sugar snap peas, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, okra and salad items. So far only one tragedy: over 100 basil plants were eaten by some critter the day after they were transplanted! Luckily we have two additional beds with better fences that are growing well. Deer browse our tomatoes and peas, but we have more than enough for sharing.

Asparagus Sprouting

Asparagus are our first vegetable harvest in spring and lasts through early June. Our next harvest is rhubarb that we make into pies. At this time our Guinea fowl also start to lay eggs so we have lots to for custard to incorporate the rhubarb chunks. 

Rhubarb Pie

One trick I use to prompt judicious planting is to soak seeds for 24 hours and then moisten them a few times a day until they sprout. This gives them leg up since they don't have to absorb moisture from the soil. It also insures that only viable seeds get planted. And planted in the order they sprout! Keeping the array of cups with a moistened seeds by the coffee machine, prompts me to check them at least three times a day when I brew cups. Most of our favorite Zucchino Rampicante seeds we saved from last summer's crop didn't sprout. Luckily we still had a few mature fruit in the cellar so we processed the largest one and its seeds grew! We also had to make lots of pies and squash meals.

Cups of Seeds Waiting to Sprout

The Seed Cavity of the Above Squash

One Zucchini Pie

Another sign of spring: when it gets hot, our dog melts and hides deep in the garage, lying on the cool concrete floor. We then know it's time to shave her. Though she reluctantly puts up with the noise of the clipper, she's overjoyed when it's over and she zips around, rolling over and over in the cool grass. She now follows me around but takes advantage of shade when I work in sunny gardens.

Belle, Half-shaved

Our Dog, Belle, Happily Sporting Her "Lion" Cut

Some of Belle's Hair to be Made into Yarn One Day

Shiitake mushrooms are another sign of spring: after a heavy rain, they bolt out of the oak logs we inoculated the year before.

Shiitake Mushrooms Growing out of Oak Logs

Many Pounds of Harvested Shiitake Mushrooms

A few weeks later, oyster mushrooms begin sprouting out of their ash-leaved maple logs.

Oyster Mushrooms 1

Oyster Mushrooms 2

As soon as summer begins, garlic scapes pop out the top of each plant. We incorporate them into many meals, chop them for freezing but donate most to a homeless shelter. We have so many garlic bulbs on the way that store well without taking room in the freezer so we don't need to preserve many scapes.

Broccoli and Garlic Scapes for Dinner!

Broccoli and Scape Curry With Rice

First Garlic Scape Harvest: 15 Pounds, 10 to a Homeless Shelter