Smokefree

Making and freezing 16 quarts of sauce sounds like a lot of work too. LOL It's nice to know you have it though.

I don't like to freeze too much because I am paranoid about a power failure. I am so tired of tomatoes right now because I have been peeling tomatoes and canning all day and I still don't have them all in jars but by tomorrow I will want more. LOL Today I simmered them down and added spices. Some pint jars I made like a barbeque sauce starter.

My garden didn't produce a huge crop so I have been buying and begging for tomatoes to can. LOL I have quite a few quarts done but it never seems like enough. I also did a few pickled peppers and hot peppers. What is everyone else doing with the fresh vegetables?

When someone starts a new plant with a cutting from Rose of Sharon is it sturdier than a plant started as a seedling? How fast would a plant from a cutting grow? I am wondering if I get a few plants from cuttings of my mom's Rose of Sharon plant what I could expect to get in the first few years.

I found another huge tomato picked right from the garden and half chewed laying RIGHT ON TOP OF A BIG PILE OF MOTHBALLS beside the garden! That squirell has it out for me. It is almost like he is trying to show me what he thinks of my feeble attempts to get rid of him. I am so sick of this that I picked every single green tomato larger than a quarter and put them inside on my windowsills.

It has to be squirrels and they are driving me crazy! Now my prize tomato that I have been watching daily has a huge bite out of it the size of a human bite mark. And I found several tomatos hidden in the bushes half eaten. Those little .............are picking the tomatoes and then munching down where they can't be seen. But the big tomato was chewed right on the plant (they probably knew it was too big to carry away) I just put mothballs around my garden. I hope that helps. It is so frustrating because I can never "see" it happening.

It started a few weeks ago with one plant. Then another. Then another. The tops of the plant and the ends of the stems are totally missing. It can't be rabbits because some of these plants are 3 feet high. It can't be deer because we don't have any ever show up in my yard- in town. What could it be?

I have gone to self-pick strawberry and blueberry farms but I never heard of a raspberry farm. How much do they charge per pound (roughly). Are the berries as good as wild ones? This is interesting.