Swamped!

It's like I fell off the face of the earth the past week or so!  I know you are thinking I probably sent the kids away to some reform school and I'm at home eating chocolates and watching soap operas, but I've actually been canning, every day, all day...  

the tomatoes were relentless!

This has been the harvest weather pretty much every day -

add to that high 90's and swarms of mosquitoes and I'm really ready for fall.

The mosquitoes are worse than usual, EEE (for those that don't know that's Eastern Equine Encephalitis) has hit our area really badly this year.  We always have reports of it here and there every year, but this year pretty much all the mosquito pools being sampled are testing positive and it's putting a lot of people in the hospital this season.  I'm covered in bites just from picking peppers this morning, and I even had pants on.  About 5-7 minutes outside is all a person can take, and everything is now so wet it just doesn't dry out before the lightning and thunder starts in again.  

I'll spare you the many tomato harvest photos, just take the one above and repeat every 48 hours.  Below is this morning's pepper harvest though!

I would love to let all my bells get nice and red, but I'm finding that their quality is all downhill from green this year, so I'm picking them at green while they are still thick walled and unmarked.  They are much smaller than other years, also.  I will get enough into the freezer for the family for winter however so I can't complain. 

The tomatoes are just about done.  I can honestly say I'm overjoyed about this, since I have plenty put away and the bugs and heat are intolerable now.  I will probably pull everything out there except my jalapeno plants soon.  I'm eager to try and replant beans soon since the heat limited my summer production and I only have about half of what I like to have put away for winter.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat... (insert this photo daily!)

Another reason I've been off the map is that hubs & I were asked to speak in church last Sunday on disaster preparedness (him) & food preparedness/growing & canning (me).  That caught us a bit off guard and I spent the better part of last week preparing that and just stressing out in general. Turns out everything went fine and nobody was shooting spitballs or heckling us LOL, but the nerves of preparing to speak before a large group can wipe you out mentally for awhile, I think I'm ready to be an introvert for awhile and just crawl back into my own kitchen and hide out. (I can see my mom's eyes roll as she reads that, me - an introvert?!)

After being eaten alive this morning picking all these peppers I managed to get them all squirreled away into the freezer for my stir fry obsession.  The big bags in the front are my jalapeños, I'll use them for stuffed jalapeños later, I just didn't have the energy to deal with the canner today.  Note the small bags of pepper strips... I realized that the next deployment is approaching fast and so started freezing them in smaller portions since without hubby here we use much less - the kids aren't exactly tripping over themselves trying to get to the vegetables yet.   After about January, I won't be able to count on the hubs to help me eat all those peppers!

I don't want to sound ungrateful since I know so many aren't getting their normal harvests this year, but I'm ready for fall.  I haven't really had trouble getting a harvest, I'm just having a different harvest.  More tomatoes and less of everything else, strange.  What is definitely different is the way the garden looks - it's absolutely horrendous!  What a mess, but it's just too hot to care as long as it's giving me food this year.  It's not like I'm out there sipping lemonade and enjoying it this summer, more like donning long sleeves against the bugs and running out with a bucket and running back in as fast as i can.  Anyone else longing for fall?  I sure hope we are all able to get into that fall mode and bake, sew, read and do all the "extra" projects we have been wanting to - seems like the past winter and summer have really annoyed more than just me :)  

"Little Mockers" and other things...

We have a new addition!

note the evil feather-horns indicating future personality!

I'm sure most of you know by now my fondness for our longtime resident mockingbird "Mockers" - this year I was able to get a close up photo of the little one!  Even though Mockers was dive-bombing my head the whole time and attack-swooshing my hair with her feathers I was determined to get a photo.  Hubby and kids were huddled together on the porch looking scared but I just love Mockers' antics, and I'm not afraid of her relocating because of my interference, she knows me well :)  I even feed her mealworms in an attempt to stop the attacks but to no avail!  I have a thing for animals with a nasty disposition so it's all fine with me.  

Other happenings... Jody you were right, I had another 40 lbs of tomatoes waiting for me as soon as I finished canning that big harvest last week!  There will be no rest for awhile...

Yesterday's harvest:

the B.L.T. dinner didn't make a dent of course so I spent the rest of the day yesterday canning sauce -

I could eat those every day, so yummy!

I'll spare you the tomato sauce canning photos, but here's a strange situation this year...

I think I'm allergic to tomato seeds stuck to my feet!  Don't laugh, I'm serious!  Never happened before, but this year every time I'm squeezing tomatoes (and we know that mess gets everywhere), if I get tomato seeds stuck/dried to my feet or legs I break out in a rash!  At first I thought it was mosquito bites from harvesting, but hubs has been doing all the tomato harvesting for my last few canning adventures, I didn't even go out there.  And get this... hands, arms, face, etc is not bothered, only my feet LOL.  I've been slathering old school calamine lotion on and it does the trick but last night I went to run an errand and looked down to find that I left the house looking like that - ok, now you can laugh!  Anyone else ever had a reaction to tomato seeds?  I think bean leaves are the only other thing that really bothers me, but I know that one is common.

This is what is going on right now...

New heat pump for the rental!  That's an expensive stress reliever but it's such a relief knowing the system is new going into the upcoming deployment.  That just leaves water heater explosions, well pump issues and car trouble as the next deployment challenges :)  It's supposed to be 107º today and these guys have to work outside and in the attic where the air handler is, can you imagine?  Must be about 125º up there, they certainly earn their pay.  I will keep them in cold water and popsicles today!

Set It & Forget It Tomato Winners!

Yes, I have some tomato winners!  But first let's purge the events of the week, namely canning 70 lbs of tomatoes...

The currant tomatoes were squeezed and dried in the oven at 170º for most of the day.  If you have never squeezed your tomatoes before drying, do it!  It cuts your time significantly.  These were put into pint jars and kept in the fridge or freezer, they will last all winter and are perfect for sun dried tomato hummus or reconstituting and tossing with pasta or on top of pizzas in the winter.

The Romas were all oven roasted, skinned and pressure canned.  The Brandywines were stewed and pressure canned.  If you are wondering why I pressure can it's because it's easier - less water in the canner is easier to heat up, I have a glass top range... that's why :)  

All those tomatoes and they shrunk down to this!

Also pictured above are steam canned pickled jalapeños, the oven dried tomatoes on the left (uncapped so you can see them), and bell pepper strips ready for the freezer.  I can steam can the short jars in the pressure canner since I don't need a high water level for the little jars.

Now, lets talk about those tomatoes!

After a few years of trying out different varieties, I am finally ready to "officially" award permanent yearly bed space to 4 varieties of tomato!  I can wholeheartedly recommend these for any of my readers that garden in heat, humidity, have had blight issues, and wish to try raised bed gardening without watering.  

My specifics:  I am in a zone 7b/8 coastal climate with a 7-12 ft deep water table, I garden in raised beds filled with 100% compost that is about 4 years old and rarely fertilize or amend anymore, in short, I'm lazy.  Our summer temps average in the 90's with heat indexes common of +100, humidity is a constant companion here in the summer.  With that heat and humidity summer thunderstorms are not uncommon, and I have relied solely upon them this year to provide water, although we are in a drought this year it is not as bad as some others are experiencing.

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And the Winners are...

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Roma VF, Virginia Select from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

The vines were a mess, almost ripped them out due to the yellowing and symptoms of disease that is running rampant in our area, BUT... once these started producing they were unstoppable, several pounds a week of tasty, meaty tomatoes perfect for canning.  Skins come off easily.

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Old Virginia, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Nice, medium sized tomato, didn't crack as much as the larger heirlooms.  At first I thought they looked a little whitish/mealy (but not as bad as a grocery store tomato!) but the taste rivaled that of my Brandywines so I was sold quickly.  That texture makes them easy to slice and not as much to squeeze out as the big heirlooms for canning, almost a roma interior on a larger slicing tomato if that makes sense.  Highly resistant to disease in my garden and apparently insects too, since I have only found a few holes here and there, nothing like the massive bites regularly taken out of my big heirlooms.

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Of course, the Brandywine

I'm still operating on a 5 year old Baker Creek seed packet, but these are readily available at the usual seed companies we all do business with.  I know many have issues getting these to produce many fruit but here they are the bulk of my canning.  4-6 plants of Brandywines will easily give me 100 -200 pounds of tomatoes each weighing between 1-2 lbs.  Hands down the most beautiful and tasty tomato for eating plain, and nothing beats a Brandywine sauce chili in the winter!  I'm sorry if you are one of the ones who live where these don't do well, but if you are ever in my area I'll load up your trunk :)

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Red Currant Tomato (aka Wild South American Tomato), Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

These are the little ones in the center of the photo above.  One word - awesome!  I ordered this one as a fun "something different" impulse buy.  These are tiny, blueberry sized bursts of happiness :)  We have 2 of these plants and they produce way more than we can consume, so one is plenty for both fresh eating and dried tomatoes to get you through winter.  I try to pick these daily and just leave them in a bowl on the counter, we grab handfuls as we walk by to snack on like peanuts.  When the bowl starts overflowing I squeeze and dry them in the oven for use in hummus and winter pizzas.  The flavor is INTENSE, very tomato-ey.  Although they are indeterminate, the leaves are small and these would do well in a container or basket I think, good to have near the door so you can pick them daily for a snack.

 So there you have it, my picks for permanent citizenship here in Tidewater Virginia!  If you hate watering the garden, try these!  I found the no watering thing to be difficult, but if you make a conscious effort to not go outside in the garden every day it's easier, ha!  If you go out there in the heat, you will feel sorry for them and water but if you are lazy like me and go harvest once a week and instead tell the plants how awesome they are for putting up with such nonsense I think you build up the plant's self-esteem and "I can do this" attitude... yep, time to go - I've obviously been spending too much time in the sun :)

Nuclear Test Site?

or is it my garden?

Brandywines over 2 lbs in 100º heat and no water?!

Haven't watered this year, haven't even had the energy to harvest in this heat, I haven't even been checking for insects or even stepped into my shed all year to fetch any amendments for the soil.  Hubs went out there last night and was gone for almost an hour, this is what he brought back:

That's 69.5 pounds of heirloom tomatoes on my table, along with another 7 pounds of bell peppers, jalapeños, cucumbers, squash and eggplant.

all these tomatoes were grown in just three 4x8 beds... that's just 96 sq ft!

God help me today.

 I'm gonna need a bigger boat canner.

Tomatoes, fun - HVAC, not so much...

This week has been a stressful one around here.  Tomatoes continue to pour in every couple days, that part is stress I handle well.  The other stress this past week came in the form of a dying heat pump, ugh.  Last Friday my tenant came home for lunch to find that her house was at about 88 degrees and climbing fast.  Did I mention that it was 106º that day?  Did the usual, system off - reset breakers - nothing.  It didn't surprise me that the system would go down in flames after a valiant 19 years in service, but why do these things have to happen on the hottest day of the year in a tenant's house?!  I called "the guy" and after 30 minutes in the 5000º attic he diagnosed a blown transformer in the air handler, $265.  After giving much thanks to God and Todd the HVAC guy, my tenant's A/C was back online, for now.  Soooo, I spent the rest of the day freaking out on how to pay for a new system since it's badly needed, I bit the bullet, prayed and applied for a loan from our bank.  A couple of seconds later I was approved and had the money in our account, I was in total shock LOL.  Although I hate it that we don't have a nice emergency savings built up thanks to me being a stay at home mom and our not-much-but-just-enough military paycheck, I am so grateful that we have been able to pay our bills on time and managed to hang on to our credit score so we could get a loan at a decent interest rate.  I could have just seen how long this fix would stick and watch it die again later and fix it, but the next deployment is coming up in the next year and that's no doubt when it would go down for good, and the system is very old, and it's our rental unit so we have to keep things going.  Spent the better part of this week getting estimates and I will be calling "our guy" back this morning and letting him know we are going with him.  I've been with this HVAC company for 19 years and they are really trustworthy, their service is awesome and they aren't pushy with recommending things we don't need (MSCO, Inc. for any local folks who want to know who to call!).  Notable - when I called our regular company on Friday, the HOTTEST day of the year, they fit me in and were here in 25 minutes, that speaks volumes to me.  One company came over here and it was like a used car dealer and a bad one at that!  I needed an HVAC system quoted and they did that and also quoted me $689 to fix a leaky tub they found under the house, really?  They must think I'm a moron, and what were they doing under my house anyways - no HVAC down there LOL.  They talked down to me a bit too which was annoying, I'm actually the one who makes these decisions around here, ha!  Anyway... my regular company was $400 higher but the unit was a nicer Trane unit which is what the old one was that ran forever, and gave me a few perks for being loyal such as throwing in a few years of the "seasonal checks" at no charge, and the sales guy was not a schmuck like the others haha.  

Life lesson here:  It pays to not be a schmuck.  :)

Now we are trying to figure out how to afford a vacation home this summer, I think we are going to be able to if I get really creative, like eating lots of rice (just kidding!) so the first step was having hubs put in for leave.  He has over 70 days of leave on the books so in theory he should be able to, but the reason he has all those days is that he's in charge of his "shop"/workcenter and with upcoming inspections and preparing for deployment (a process called the workup cycle), they haven't been able to afford him being gone.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Back to the good kind of stress, tomatoes!

Not too shabby for a disease ridden year!

I didn't really want to be creating this kind of mess so early in the season, but after putting away salsa all last week, it's time to branch out.

I refuse to get the canner out when temps are in the 100's so I made this batch into a big batch of fresh Brandywine Chile - the taste was amazing.  We had that for dinner and froze the rest.

Look what's going up only 2 miles from my house!  WooHoo!  There is a Trader Joe's right across the street that's been there for about 2 years now so we are going to have several really nice choices to shop at.  This is the only Whole Foods location within our area, the next one is 2 hours up the road so we're pretty stoked about having it open up.

Doesn't this injury look fake? What do you think Loch did to his foot and leg?  I will reveal the answer in my next post :)

The heat has let up for now, we've been in a state of heavy downpours for 2 days and it's much cooler, only getting into the 80's now, hope it lasts for awhile.  The bug to throw stuff away and rearrange my house has bit me again so I'll be doing that for the next few days.  Every couple months I attempt to find more space, I'm convinced that there are many more square feet to be uncovered, if I'm only creative enough!

I have to catch up on my blog reading so no proofreading my post today, sorry if it's completely nonsensical!  :)

The "Whatever" Garden...

Took a deep breath and went into the garden this morning...

I was going to clean this pigsty of a house today, but it looks like now I have other plans.

Salsa, anyone?

Snapped this one last night while out running the kids to music lessons, check out the time!

Just stupid hot, time to break out the old Redneck Heat Detector, one of my favorite web images :)

Today's harvest brings me over the 100 lb mark finally!  With no peas, carrots or garlic this year and a short bean run I was worried that I'd reach that mark at all!  I don't even want to speculate on what the end of summer total will be since every day I get tomatoes with the heat and disease and drought is a bonus day to me.  

Interesting difference to this year's garden, no water!  I can't quite believe it myself, but since I wasn't feeling so into gardening this year I decided to try the lazy approach and see if the plants would just "toughen up".   In other years, I'm out there batting mosquitoes and watering almost every day but I haven't watered yet this year, and it's not raining either - our grass is so dry we haven't mowed in 3 weeks!  No soil amendments, just throw away the blossom end rot veggies and shrug "whatever", when the wind blows the tomatoes down they stay down, too lazy this summer.  Yet nice tomatoes are still there, and as a matter of fact none of them are cracked like usual years.  Interesting.

4th of July Celebrating

We had a fun morning yesterday - we had a nice potluck breakfast and children's bike parade at church. Really nice that we were at it by 9 am and done by 11 before the heat got too intense.  Before breakfast our congregation sang an impromptu National Anthem without accompaniment and I'll admit we sounded pretty darn good - lots of wet eyes during that one :), of course we are a largely military congregation so we are patriotic to the nth degree!  It was a great morning and lots of fun for the kids and grownups.

Having a little fun with the 4th of July harvest:

I was up early to assemble the annual Patriotic Trifle...

yum!

Finn with his scooter all ready for the parade!

Did someone say it was for kids?  I didn't catch that!  Of course my Beach Betty had to be decorated for the 4th of July too, she lives for this stuff!  (And I made the hubs put some flair on his roller skates!)

Kids all lined up and ready to roll...

The Bike Parade!  

(hubby is bringing up the rear on his skates)

Afterwards, I spent the middle of the day inside catching up on my magazine pileup, hubby and the boys went to the pool on base for awhile, I don't know how they can take the heat.

After dinner, the hubs and Finn went out for a paddle around the inlet near the oceanfront.  Loch stuck with me, I guess we are the wimps who can't take the temps outside.

We all headed to the beach to watch the fireworks once it got dark (still 93º at 8:30 pm).  I'll spare you photos of fireworks, I know that's kind of annoying so I don't take them.  I really wish I could have better captured the stunning moon we saw rise up over the Atlantic, it was bright orange and really pretty, but you will just have to take my word for it since my little camera doesn't do fancy moons :)

Trust me, it was orange and awesome.

And what is it with RUDE people today?????  The entire time we were watching fireworks all the people around us were blinding us with camera flashes and lit up phone screens in the dark, ugh!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July full of time spent with family and friends and good food!