As it's been a great year for tomatoes, we decided to make as much juice as we had canning jars left after the run of stewed and salsa.
This is the first time we've used the whole tomato. Skin, seeds and pulp all. After coring out the stems and removing bruises and bad spots, everything went into the ninja blender. We added onions, celery, carrots and spinach. After simmering for one hour, we let it cool down and again ran it through the blender. Another thirty minutes of simmering and straight to the canning process. No straining required.
The juice is thick and wonderfully flavored. With a little flour and heating it also makes wonderful soup. We're never removing the skins and seeds again.

RAndy and I only grew garlic this year. We are trying to get to where we grow about 1/4 acre. We started with 100 plants, which turned into 200 plants and we harvested 400+ this year. We'll be planting around 1500 next year, so it will start to become a cash crop. Once we plant around 7500, in 2017, we'll be able to start selling it. We need a greenhouse, so that will come in the next year or two. We enjoyed other's to natives, squash, corn, etc., thus year. Hope to gave our own to harvest and can in the coming years. Thanks for thus. It will help us as we move through the processes.

Enjoy your weekend!

Amazing I looked up restaurant Sweet and Sour Pork as opposed to my version. 1643.31 calories versus my 389.

Here is the difference: restaurant style
Calories 1643.31
Total Fat 95.369 g
Saturated Fat 16.321 g
Trans Fat 0.53 g
Monounsaturated Fat 21.479 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 43.336 g
Cholesterol 146.16 mg
Sodium 1851.36 mg
Total Carbohydrate 142.141 g
Dietary Fiber 6.09 g

Mine: Per Serving: 389 Calories; 16g Fat (37.6% calories from fat); 29g Protein; 32g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 68mg Cholesterol; 380mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain (Starch); 4 Lean Meat; 1 1/2 Vegetable; 1/2 Fruit; 2 Fat; 1 Other Carbohydrates.

So if you want good and healthy Sweet and Sour Pork here is my recipe.
Sweet and Sour Pork

thanks! It will change my gardening practices from here on out and I'll always
think of "earthling" when I leave the roots in.

Happy harvest!

the best garden I have ever had in Texas.

When I first wrote this comment, I didn't take enough time to do it right. So I am doing it over.

Gerrit . . . I completely relate to

First off, a confession about harvesting. I'm usually somewhat organized for seeds and planting and raising veggies. Come harvesting, I've run out of discipline and its a disorganized chaotic mess. Oh well :=)

This is the first year, after trying for 22 years, that I have had a decent harvest in Texas and have actually preserved the harvest so that I am using it in cooking later. That means 21 years of mostly failures. Little successes here and there. But mostly failure. Last year my husband teased me, saying I had a "black thumb." Regarding my corn growing efforts.

Largely, I have been beating myself up over it, because I grew up on an organic dairy farm in northern Iowa where we grew, raised, preserved all of our food. My dad did dairy to earn a living, but his passion was gardening. My mom was a college educated woman, but married my dad and embraced farming. She was a fabulous fabulous cook and baker. A very high standard to live up to.

Living in Texas, driving around the countryside and looking at many beautiful gardens, eventually I began to question . . . "so they plant and it grows and looks good . . . but does anyone actually harvest anything?" Some do, but many don't. Our growing season is so short. Once it hits 100 degrees, everything is done. Except okra. Okra wants water, but doesn't give a shit about heat. So we live on okra???? In 2014 it was 34 degrees on May 1 and 100 degrees on June 1 (approximately). Nothing grows and is ready for harvest in one month.

But this year we had a mild winter and I had the where-with-all to plant out tomato and pepper plants on March 1. Also, I planted green bean and swiss chard seeds. My potatoes and onions were planted in February. It froze twice after I planted, so I covered everything with my super duper insulated covering cloth.

Also . . . I started carrot, parsnip, radishes, beets and garlic in the fall. They popped up in the fall, then I covered them during the winter and took the covers off by March. I have never ever ever successfully grown carrots before.

My original post is the wonderful result . . .

I froze 40 quarts of tomatoes. Froze 10 quarts of plum jam. Froze 10 quarts of various varieties of peppers and have also made many quarts of lacto-fermented pickled peppers. Froze carrots.

My neighbor asked me to come and pick plums at a friends house. Holy schmoly beautiful plums. Made those 10 quarts of freezer jam. The same fabulous neighbor just brought me a gob of figs. We will make freezer jam of those as well.

I also had a good crop of potatoes and onions that we have been eating. And my herbs are doing well.

I know how to do canning, but freezing is so much easier. Canning is more resilient, because you don't need electricity. At this time in my life experience, freezing is simply the best I can to.

So I am going to keep trying. It is so wonderful to walk out to my garden and pick some veggies to bring in the house for cooking. At this moment I have 130 seeds sprouting on my dining room table for hopefully the next round.

In Texas we have 3 big problems.

1. The growing seasons are too short.
2. The soil is terrible
3. Bugs, like grasshoppers, that can easily wipe out everything.

I grow everything in "lasagna garden" "keyhole garden" type beds. That means I create my own soil by layering cardboard, paper, leaves, grass clippings, manure, etc . . . put already created soil on the top . . . add worms . . . and plant.

Ultimately, in Texas, I see the solution to be underground greenhouses. We need to be able to create our own soil . . . keep out the pestilence . . . and ignore the weather.

Speaking of pestilence . . . I also for the first time had a great crop of yellow summer squash. I was picking a dozen every few days and giving them away to all my friends. One day, I went out to pick for the in-laws, and they were completely wiped out. All of the leaves and squash were gone . . . just stems left. Squash bugs can be bad here, but there was no evidence that they were the culprits.

Well . . . I think that is it for my edit.

P.S. Thanks for the harvesting chart. Very helpful!

Please post your pictures of your harvest!

These are mine:

Oops . . . got some pet pics in there too!