As I was growing up (many of you already question that comment) my mother bottled everything moving. She also painted everything that stood still - but that's another story. She was part of the starvation era, kinda like the Obabma era we're having now (yet another story)... when sugar was rationed, and meat was scarce, and dinnertime was passed by for many (sounds like "if we get 4 more years). I also know that there was a garden every single year of my life, and produce grown there like none other because my dad was a master gardener. Nothing went to waste. Most of it was given away. Many blessings came and went in that garden of dad's. So every year I pull out the larger than life preservation tools of the trade... dehydrator, food processor, steamer, canner, pressure cooker. I also pull out all of the chick flicks I have on DVD and just line them up to play them. I spread a big sheet on the kitchen floor because I have come to learn that you can actually rip a tennis shoe off after doing sticky peaches. The bottles come out and are run through the scalding hot water and the lids and rings are counted up. I can grow several things in my garden at my home - but our soil is 'sandy' of course, so most of my feastings come from the garden in Mendon. The corn grows outrageously tall, the pumpkins are huge, and the tomatoes are as big as your hand. There are raspberries, and cucumbers, sunflowers, squash, asparagus, apple trees and grapes. The cantaloupe would be set up on Pepsi cans to ripen, right before the stem fell off... and of course - Walla Walla onions make their home there too. It's a bit haphazard during canning season - the kitchen fills up with bottled this and that - the freezer loses it's summer ice cream spots to frozen corn and squash. But there is a peace about it all. I've promised God every year that whatever he'll let grow - I will bottle - and someday I will use it to feed the masses. He, as always, never fails me. So far the corn is in the freezer, happy and yellow and ready to be salted a buttered. Yesterday, 1 of 4 bushel of apples churned themselves into cinnamon applesauce and pie slices. Frozen raspeberries from those amazing Bear Lake Bushes growing along the fenceline are freezedried for winter jams. Beans are snipped and stacked in the basement, peppers are being dried, and soon it will be soup and chili making time. How good it is to have a harvest - and to have been taught by my mother how to do it, and a dad who created it. People think I'm crazy when I talk about gardening - and about my connection to my dad and the earth and the harvest - it's a lost art now to many - but maybe one day I'll pass it on. Until then - I wanted to share my favorite idea for one of my least favorite items in the garden. It didn't break my heart one bit to see this tragedy happen... in fact... I wish it would happen more! Happy Canning!
Die tomatoes Die....
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