stubbed toes and mud pies

[flowerbug]

canning tomatoes this morning while waiting for the dew to dry off out there. looks like i have about 16-18 quarts to get into jars now that i have them skinned, cored and chunked. resting a bit before i get them hot and pack into jars and seal.

 

[digitS']

Wow.

And, I was content with our recent 4 quarts of pasta sauce start.

The question for us is how much remains in the freezer from 2024? That was a very good tomato year. So much so, that we reduced the # of this year's plants. September's production is still on the vine. The green, before-frost fruit will likely be destined for the same sauce processing.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

that was just what was left from the first picking. i haven't looked at the tomato patch since that day because i don't want to see how much more damage the raccoons might be doing...

it was 16 & 1/2 quarts total.

 

[flowerbug]

picked four buckets of tomatoes and another bucket of rejects that got buried. will be canning some of these tonight.

tomatoes are so sweet the ants are going after them. first time i've seen that. maybe also because it has been dry... hmm...

 

[ninnymary]

yeah, you definitely want to get the right kind, i've seen it called Mother of Thyme, Creeping Mother of Thyme or Coccineus Thyme but i would not buy any until i saw it flowering to make sure it is the right color. there's a lot of variations out there and the names don't seem to be used consistently. i know for sure that i do not know the specific name of this we have planted here because it was a long time ago and the tags are long long gone.

if you were closer you could come get some chunks of it. i've never harvested seeds from this so i don't even know what the seeds look like or when they're ready. i could go look and see if any are out there (tomorrow since it is dark now)...

it also does require a fair amount of sunshine - i'm not sure you have that where you are at?

I missed seeing your response. The one I bought is not flowering and tag said Pink. I haven’t planted it and it’s not looking so good. Mad at myself cause it was $6.99 for the six pack! I have some between some flagstone and was going to plant it there but they don’t look anything alike. We get a lot of Sun here just not very hot most of the time.

 

[flowerbug]

...We get a lot of Sun here just not very hot most of the time.

sun and not too soggy and it should be ok. it does fine in cool to cold weather and survives our winters as long as it isn't completely dried out.

 

[flowerbug]

had to go around some places this morning and find the spiders and their egg cases and evict them. one in particular i had to get the chair out again to stand on so i could get up in the far corner of the closet to roust it out. this time i emptied the shelf below it of supplies so just in case it was able to escape again i could still capture it. worked.

before that i had to go through the decorations along the patio doors to find all of the spiders. not too many but enough to do their webs and have little piles of bugs underneath. not any Mommas in those.

when i got to my room and went along my patio door and the table with a towel that drapes down it is usually a spider haven and i knew it was from the type of spider webs and how many bug bodies were piling up under there... i found two Mommas on one end of the table (which is not usual they don't normally hang out very close together) along with ten egg cases (so that means several hundred potential baby spiders had i not gotten them evicted). a few smaller males were around too but not as many as i expected from all the webs.

that was enough of that for the morning. it's a beautiful day outside so after a break to give my back a rest i'll head out for more dry bean picking and weeding.