September has been BUSY!! So productive and I’ve learned so much! I’ve been busy with getting new customers at our family’s auto repair shop, Mastermind Enterprises, and even worked on my first guest post for another blogger friend of mine! I met some new friends and loved on my family, too. 78 days until baby is here!
It was time for another family harvest this past weekend! We harvested and processed tomatoes and grapes – two family food favorites. Gardening is not an easy task. Thankfully, it’s a family effort and we’ve done our harvesting in stages!
This year, we have 30 tomato plants alone, so we couldn’t can all of our tomatoes at once. This is our second wagon full of tomatoes this year! Not sure how many more we have left. We still have a lot of tomatoes left on the plants! Yay!
We spent hours as a family picking tomatoes from our garden, processing them, making our homemade sauce and canning them! Our goal this year is to have enough tomatoes to last us until we have ripe tomatoes on the plants from next year’s garden. This year we made it until June with last year’s tomatoes. FYI, the white marks on the tomatoes are calcium deposits from our well water.
It’s always a ton of work for us at this time of year, but so worth it! We’ll have fresh fruit and veggies from our garden all winter long. I love being able to make yummy food from the summer in when there is snow on the ground. We spent hours picking, processing and preparing grapes to freeze, too!
While we were picking tomatoes, we let Noah and Nemi play in the garden, too. They picked a flower off the marigolds for Mama, then decided to plant it in the ground. It was so cute to me that they knew that a flower is supposed to be planted in the ground!
This weekend we’ll be harvesting more carrots and canning a pumpkin! We’ve already done one carrot harvest this year. One of our favorite family traditions is saving our very last bag of carrots from the previous year’s garden for a spring dinner. This is a challenging time of year for us, but so rewarding all winter. Pray for my family this weekend!
Thank you, God, for my many blessings! May You keep giving me the strength to handle it all!
Blessings, Mrs. Olsen 💗
Wow, love all those tomatoes! I’m guessing you get more sun than we do – I won’t grow tomatoes any more until I have a greenhouse! Have fun canning xx
Thank you, Naomi! All of these tomatoes are canned. We’ll be canning another round of tomatoes tonight!
I canned for the first time this year and we only had 8 tomato plants (I can’t imagine 30!). I agree that it’s very gratifying to enjoy our harvest throughout the year. I have canned tomato sauce, chili tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and salsa (mild and hot). Would you consider sharing your sauce recipe?
That’s awesome that you like canning, too! What else do you grow in your garden? What are your favorite canning recipes/sites? We just finished preparing our carrot harvest from the weekend. I will post recipes soon!
This is a amazing! Such a great way to get healthy foods to your family, but less expensive than the grocery store, to boot! I’d love to see the recipes you use!
Thank you, Leah! It’s awesome. What I love most of all is that we do it together. Tonight, we finally finished processing, preparing and juicing all our carrots from the weekend! I will start posting recipes soon!
I’d love a garden in theory with all the wonderful fresh veggies but not in practicality. I”m just too lazy! :)
I’d love to taste your spaghetti sauce!
A garden is a definitely a lot of work! That’s why the whole family helps! All the work is worth it once harvest time is over. :) There’s definitely nothing like homemade. It’s nice to know our sauce looks delicious, too. ;)
I’m jealous of all those delicious homegrown tomatoes. I live in an apartment building with no place to plant outside. Do you have any suggestions on how to successfully plant inside?
Thank you, Gina! If you live in Denver, I have extra! :) Unfortunately, we don’t have any tips because we only grow outside. We know it’s possible because we see others doing it. But we have not been able to do it successfully yet. We did try with tomatoes and lettuce over a winter once. Our tomato plants were big and beautiful, but no tomatoes. Our lettuce did well, though.
Sounds like fun! Wish I had a green thumb
Thank you, Susan! My husband helped me grow my green thumb. :)