So many good things have happened this week. Most important is my tomatoes are bearing a lot of fruit. Back in the beginning of the season the tomatoes were struck with awful Septoria leaf spot. It rained here almost everyday from the beginning of May when the tomatoes were planted to the beginning of July.
The result was disease that spread like wildfire all through my tomato plants. I was clipping diseased tomatoes leaves for hours and hours a day and I didn’t feel like it was helping because the rain made it hard for the tomatoes to dry out and get ahead of the disease.
One Sunday I decided I needed to pray and fast for the tomatoes to still produce. Having enough canned tomatoes, salsa, etc. for winter was important for money saving, for the goals we set as a family, and our food storage. As silly as it sounds to pray for tomatoes, it was really important to me, and I knew that because it was important to me it was important to Heavenly Father too.
I kept praying, kept fertilizing, mulching, and clipping leaves… and then just last week the constant rain stopped. A few days ago, I pulled 15 pounds of tomatoes off the plants in one day. The next day we had another good harvest. And again today another 10 pounds of tomatoes.
Every time I’ve picked tomatoes this week I’ve been filled with gratitude for a simple prayer that was answered.
The other good news for this week is that I got so much canning done. I’m tired right now. So tired. But it’s a happy kind of tired because I am doing something that I enjoy.
Last night I was up until 3am canning salsa. When you get rolling with canning its way easier to just knock it out and finish rather than stop midway though try and pick it up again the next day.
So at 3am I went up to bed. This morning I woke up to the sound of Cameron laughing at me. I was looking at him like what’s so funny when I looked down and saw it. I was all tucked in to bed under the covers and peaking out was my kitchen apron. I still had it on from canning last night. Honestly, I’m wearing it so much these days I forget its even on! Haha!
In the garden:
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Harvesting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash, basil, and first 2 ears of corn today!
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Garden was neglected a lot this week because of all the canning happening.
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I noticed squash bugs start to go on my cucumbers of all things! I’ve been diligently picking them off of the squash plants and didn’t even think to check other members of the squash family. It’s almost time to pull the plant anyway. Once the cucumbers start getting bitter, I just take it out. It also has the start of powdery mildew too.
In the kitchen:
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Canned 27 quart jars peaches in syrup
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Canned 10 half pints of peach BBQ sauce — unfortunately I didn’t love how the recipe turned out on this one.
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Canned 12 pint jars salsa
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Dehydrated more leeks, I think it was about 4 quarts worth
