Peak

This is peak canning season for me right now. The corn I got from the farmer is either in jars or in our bellies. I'm kind of sick of corn. First time ever! After I sliced the kernels off the cob, I'd nibble a little bit of the corn that was left on the cobs before I tossed it in the bucket. Imagine working on 5 dozen corn and nibbling just about every other ear... yeah, that's a lot of corn! I couldn't help it! The corn was just so sweet and tasty! Hopefully I'll crave corn again before the end of corn season around here and we can have a few more meals with fresh corn on the cob.


The tomato plants I got from the farm store were mislabeled, I think. I bought several types; always get big boy, romas, and cherry toms. Then I get whatever else strikes my fancy: early girls, better boys, types like that. The big boys were getting nice and big alright, but they weren't turning ripe. I kept waiting for them to change from the orange color to red, then today I realized they were ripe! I had all these huge orange tomatoes almost too ripe! Must have been a mix-up or the markers got switched somewhere along the way. They're good, but I had to harvest quite a bit of tomatoes after supper, so I am unexpectedly making a batch of roasted tomato sauce tonight. I'll throw it all in the crockpot after I roast them and let the crockpot do the cooking for me overnight.

The big orange ones in the upper left corner are the mystery fruit. Any guesses as to what they are?? The cherry toms are also not what I bought. I bought the regular cherry toms, but these are black cherry toms. Very prolific!! The vines grow taller than me and spread across half the fence and I am harvesting bowls and bowls of these little toms! Quite tasty, they seem to have a more concentrated taste of tomato, I like it. I've been throwing them in with the other tomatoes as I can them, we can't eat them fast enough!

Had a lull in the tomatoes the other day, so I made and canned a batch of wet walnuts or you probably know it as walnut syrup. I grew up calling them wet walnuts. My dad loves this stuff, they sold in little jars and he could easily use the whole bottle on a bowl of ice cream and I remember him grumbling when I used some on mine. I understand now, why he grumbled, they're pretty pricey for a little jar. I used up the last jar I canned last year quite a while ago, and have been craving some lately, so I finally got my ingredients together and made some. I'm thinking I'll make a second batch after I pick up some more maple extract. I have more walnuts I need to use up that have been sitting in the pantry since last Fall.

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The kitchen counters are covered in jars and garden harvests. Very hard to find clear counter space this time of year. One counter has cases of canned jars that need to be moved down stairs. Another is the holding area for canned jars until I have enough to fill a case. I have a pile of empty jars in the sunroom waiting to be filled. The counters by the stove and sink are buried under tomatoes and peppers and even the stove is hidden under the canner and pots. I kind of like seeing the organized chaos, but I admit, I will be happy to have my kitchen back to normal again.

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I'm happy. It's hot and canning is hot work, but I enjoy the whole process. I'm just one of those people that are happiest when they are in the kitchen. After the last couple years of not having enough tomatoes to harvest, you'll hear no complaints from me about being overwhelmed with tomatoes this year! I hope you are having good harvests too!

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