It's that time of year again -- tomato canning!
Last Friday, we drove out to our CSA farm very early, picked more tomatoes than we ever thought possible, and then spent a big chunk of our weekend canning them.
We used the same canning method this year as we have for the past few years. That's all chronicled in a video we made three years ago.
This time, though, we had some special guests -- Zach's mom and stepdad were here, and they were excited to help out! (At least that's what we're telling ourselves.) Eight hands made the work much faster.
We thought you'd like to see some photos of our latest adventures in canning.
Like we said, it was early.
But it was a beautiful morning on the farm.
Here's Zach "walking the vines." (That's a phrase we just made up.)
We've had a very mild, rather rainy summer. We weren't sure what that would do to the tomato crop, but it turns out to have been wonderful! We've never seen so many perfect, healthy, ripe tomatoes. We essentially just set our bags down, and the tomatoes fell right in. Essentially.
We love this shot of Clay in the field.
It was such a bumber crop that we wound up picking more tomatoes than we ever have before. Pardon the messy dining room in this shot -- dropping a boatload of tomatoes into your house throws things in disarray.
Thanks to the help from Zach's parents, we were able to keep the tomato carnage to a minimum this year. Still, it's a pretty messy job.
Before and after!
The finished product! This is the greatest amount of tomatoes we've ever canned -- we ended up with 44 quarts! That ought to last us a very long time.
Now we just need to start eating!
What about you? Did you can anything this year? (Or "put up," as our grannies would say?)
