Road Kill Cafe

We have been having some ISP issues, so I haven’t been around for a few days. Our satellite provider has seen fit to fap us when we weren’t even online……………

We are now back to using 2 cans and a string, err………I mean dial-up. At least I can get back to posting.

I finally have the stove installed! To go with that, here is a picture:

1948 Roper Gas Range

These are the things that are making up my world recently. My tomatoes are showing no signs of even slowing down their fruit production. Most days find me out picking the ripe tomatoes, usually filling a 5 gallon bucket.  Everyday I look for signs of the plants begining to die off, but they are remaining a very healthy looking shade of green.

It is amazing the amount of green tomatoes that there still are on the plants. Loads of all sizes from tiny to fill your hand on the Big Boys. The Romas are not to be out done either. Just to look at the quantity of tomatoes in the garden, you would think that none had been harvested. I have picked scads of tomatoes and have made sauce and salsa. There are still scads yet to ripen and be picked.

I think that quantity wise, the tomatoes are trying to out do the cucumbers and green beans. It is just wonderful how well the garden is producing this year. My rusty canning memory is really getting a work out. But I have rows of beautiful canned home grown produce to show for my efforts. I know that when we are enjoying the canned and frozen produce in the middle of winter, it will have been worth all the work of gardening and preserving.

For some reason that was what was going through my mind as I stirred the latest batch of simmering sauce. Maybe it was because of the steam rising off the sauce and being blown ever so slightly by the breeze. Due to the breeze the steam was cascading over the top of the pot and down one side a la the stereotypical witch of Halloween lore. Or maybe it was because I have just spent so much time simmering and canning tomatoes.

This batch of sauce is made up of only Roma tomatoes. The others were a combination of the Fouth of Julys, Big Boys and Romas. The Fourth of July tomatoes are finished and I am using the Big Boys to make salsa. I will be, hopefully, canning this sauce later today, after it reduces some. Tomorrow I need to make a couple of batches of salsa and get those canned as I am sure I have enough Big Boys sitting on the table to do that.

Finally the peppers, both the green peppers and the jalapenos are putting on fruit. Mr.B had potted the green peppers from the garden since so few of them came up to make weeding that area easier. Maybe that is what set them back, but the jalapenos were left where they were planted and they are in the same mode as the green peppers. Oh well, they are both finally blooming and putting on fruit.

I was able to find some more pint jars. I happened to be at Wal Mart shortly after they were stocked on the shelves. Needless to say what they put out didn’t last long. I walked by the shelf on my up to the check out and the shelves were bare again. But I was able to get five flats of a dozen jars each, so hopefully that will be enough for the rest of the tomatoes and the apples that I want to get soon.

I have not been the only person looking for jars. There have been ads on Craigslist and in the local paper of folks looking for jars. When I passed a couple of older ladies in Wal Mart and they saw I had jars they both asked me at the same time if there were any left. They stated that they had been having a difficult time finding jars, used or new, and that they had already used up all that they owned. It seems that more folks are canning this year.

Like with most everything in this years garden the tomatoes are out producing the last crop from the garden. I am hard at it, most days, either picking, stemming and washing the tomatoes or processing them.  The first batch of tomatoes yielded 16 pints of sauce. The second batch gave me 7 quarts and 5 pints. I think we have enough tomato sauce now to last a while.

I picked more tomatoes yesterday and will have to go out and pick some more today. Also on the agenda for today is making some salsa. I scrounged around in the pantry and was able to come up with 5 pint jars, just enough to make a small batch. I have been looking for more canning jars, especially pints, but I am finding either nothing but empty shelves or that something else has filled the space. I am not done with gathering produce and canning yet. Where are the jars?

Apple season is yet to come and it seems like no one is stocking canning jars any more. This may prove to be a big problem. I have been to two different Wal Marts and various other stores in this area and none of them have any jars. If I knew this was going to happen I would have stocked up when the jars were plentiful. I guess I will know better next year. But for now I still need more jars. The search will continue.