Canned Food Pictures

Yesterday was such a busy day. Hubby and I had an errand we had to run and that took us til around noon. Then I came home and picked up my mom and we went out looking at garage sales, it was a great deal of fun. I enjoy spending that one on one time with her. Then when we got home the busy work began. When we stopped working at 11:30 at night we had 7 quarts of potatoes, 11 1/2 pints of Strawberry Jelly and Jam and 10 pints of Peach Jam. It was a lot of work and it really did a number on me but it is so worth it to have this great food put up for the following year. Had it not been for my husband and daughter no where near this amount of food would have gotten done. They are always awesome to help me out.

This is the Strawberry Jam, I was hoping you would be able to see clearly how beautiful it is but the camera did not do it justice.

This one again was where I was trying to show you how you can "see" the texture of the jam in the jar.

This is th Strawberry Jelly, it had no pulp added  to it so this is just a beautiful easy to spread jelly.

This is showing the 7 quarts of potatoes we got done. That is a quick and easy process to do. It was the first time I have done it and I was thrilled with how easy it is.

The jars in the front on the right side of the picture are the Peach Jam, oh I can't wait to get into that. Not only is it great on toast but fruit is a natural meat tenderizer so putting this or many of the other jellys and jams I've told you about on meat is an amazing experience in cooking, one you are not likely to forget any time soon. So give it a try I think you will love it as much as we do.

Close up of the Peach Jam

Canned Potatoes.

Tomato Worm

Tomato Worm

This is the number one enemy of your Tomato plants. This tomato worm can strip an entire plant within a few hours.

Should you find one on your plants remove it ASAP. We destroy them as we don't want them getting back to our plants.

If your plant has been attacked by one of these worms you can often save the plant by giving it extra TLC and time. However, should the worm be on the plant to long or left on the plant it will destroy and kill your plant.

Tomato's in a Raised Bed Garden

It may seem like there wouldn't be much to catch you up on since the summer has really just begun, however, in the world of a garden a lot has happened so far.

It may take a couple of days but I want to get pictures on here to show you what all we have planted and how they are doing so far.

My intention is not to talk down to anyone but to give all the information that I have or things I have discovered in regards to my garden, therefore I will write this based on the thought that the person reading it may have little to no garden experience.


Several weeks before summer got here I started some tomato seeds, wanting to have them going in the house and to a nice size when it came time to put them outside. All together I had a total of 62 seeds started. They were all coming up and doing just great and then WHAM something went wrong. I'm not sure what it was or how it happened but I lost every single plant.

Shortly after that happened my mom called and told me the college in our town was having their annual garden plant sale. I didn't think much of it but agreed to go with her to check it out. To our surprise when we got there the prices were so low and the plants were so big and beautiful that we went a little bonkers. 

I ended up coming home with several plants and showed them to my husband. He was so impressed by them that we went back and got more. It put us at a total of 21 plants.

Our next action was to figure out where we wanted to plant them, that choice was made as were plans to plant them the next day. Then our area got hit by rain that seemed like it would never stop. It was several weeks before we were able to get the plants out, I feared I was going to lose them as well.

I have to say these are the most amazing plants I have ever seen. Some of the plants have stalks so large they look like a small tree. They are also some mad  producers, we tried to count how many tomatoes were on the vines about a week ago, we lost count at over one hundred of them.

I'll put a series of photos here so you can see what they are looking like and as they continue to grow, change and produce.

This first set of pictures were taken in May. We had to hurry and get them out because they were getting in such bad shape. As you can see although they are tall there isn't much to them. They are unlike any tomato plant we have ever had.

If you are new to gardening I would also recommend that you do not plant them as close together as you see these are. They need the space to grow. Under different circumstances we never would have but we had a time issue and had to get them out. The plans for next years plants are amazing and can't wait to share those with you as we start working on that this summer.

So in the above photos there are 15 tomato plants. I'll add some pictures now showing you what they look like in the month of June. You will understand why I'm saying this planting method is not a good idea. Had they been regular tomato plants it might have worked but I would still suggest more space between them.

As you can see, they have really taken off and it would hav been better had they had a bit more room. Now to contradict what I've just said, this planting method is working in our area due to the very hot summer days we are having and the fact that the outer sides of the plants are giving some shade to the inner areas. I wouldn't plan to plant that way on purpose as tomato plants love their water and the hot hot days of sun and summer.