Canning potatoes and, of course, more tomatoes!

Canning Crazy!

I am getting a bit overwhelmed with the harvesting and canning activities so what I am going to do here is just post some pictures that i took over the past several days and add captions to explain things.

14 quarts and 6 pint and a half jars of tomatoes that Katherine cleaned and I canned on Sept 4 evening

This is a picture of the cucumber relish (I think) that Katherine made on labor day weekend.  16 pints.  She didn't like the recipe so I won't post it.  It has way too much liquid in it.

 We made it up to the farm last Friday, Sept 5, in time for me to gather some of the rough potatoes from the potato harvest and can them!  We ate 3 of the jars shown below during the weekend to see if we liked them done this way.  Personally, i loved them!  Katherine cooked them in potatoes, eggs and onions breakfasts!  Used our own onions too!

This is the next morning immediately after taking them out of the PC.

Closer view

I didn't get a picture of them later that day, but I will state that the "clear" liquid in those jars gets thick and white with starch!  I personally did not work to get them out of the jars after canning so I don't know really how hard they are to dislodge.  Katherine said it wasn't too bad and she votes for canning more of the damaged potatoes.  They are convenient and don't take freezer space.

More broccoli and our first cauliflower of the season!  The cauliflower looks super good!

We haven't eaten it yet.  That's the problem when stuff comes in this fast.  We just finished eating the broccoli from LAST weekend!

I sorted the potatoes according to damaged vs non-damaged and color.  Looks like we got a total of about 175 lbs this harvest!

The ones in the bucket are next years seed potatoes

Brassica patch is looking quite nice actually!

Late cabbage

another late cabbage, heading up nice!

Quite a few late cabbages made it!  We might have to figure out what to do with all this cabbage!

The cauliflower and broccoli plants are still going strong.  Not sure if we will get enough to freeze or pickle though. 

Yep - that's my green globe artichoke!  Katherine says that they are perennial, so even if this doesn't produce this year, maybe next?  I just need to figure out a way of moving it - its in the center of the paw-paw patch!

Another artichoke.  I have 4 in all.

The kale!  Lots of green leaves!  I sprayed all the brasicas with BT.  I didn't harvest any kale this weekend.  I think i will harvest some and start drying it next weekend.

Smokey, checking things out!

Harvested the sunflowers (most of them) this weekend.  I put them on the garage floor to dry.  I thought about putting them in the red-barn on the trailer bed, but i was afraid that squirrels would help themselves!  The garage is a bit tighter.

Trying to get a record of the tomatoes.  I think we will just have to inventory them after we are all done at this point.

this shows 28 quarts plus 6 pint and a halfs

We brought 3 bus trays full of tomatoes back this time.  Katherine is already a bit punchy over the weekend canning activities and she thinks there is no end in sight.  We did give some of the heirloom "pink lady" tomatoes away to neighbors and friends at work.  She is going to put some of these in trays (after juicing) to try to get a thicker sauce going.  She did a bunch of sauce on the farm on Sunday night - it was very good!  It does take some cooking though. The idea is that on trays, in the oven, there will be more surface area for the sauce to evaporate faster.  We will see!

Buttercup Squash

Those green squash with the little cap on the end are called "buttercup squash".  We probably got the seed packets mixed up with "butternut" squash (since I don't have any of those - lol).  Well, we finally tried one and it was GOOD!  Wonderful flavor and a great texture.  Bright orange!  We will be saving the seeds from these for sure!