Tomatoes and Salsa

The growing season is nearing it's end. We have had a great year, filled with learning experiences. We have made plans for the future on how to expand our growing space. We have had successes and failures, and look forward to the rest that winter will bring as we prepare for next spring. 

Rather than try to write a long post detailing all our crops, we are going to focus a post on each individual type. This way we can give a more detailed picture of our experiences. 

Today we would like to review one of our favorite crops, Tomatoes. 

We learned a lot about tomatoes this growing season, despite having grown them many times in years past. This is the first year that we have been able to successfully start our plants from seedlings. We also learned the substantial benefits of investing in a grow light. 

As we transferred our plants outside We discovered that it is possible for plants to come back from a late freeze, though this was quite a setback for our growing season. We also used a different method of support for our plants, a wooden frame with cecil twine strung down to hold the plants. 

We learned pruning techniques, and a lot about tomato horn worms and the moths they become. After finding several on our plants we brought some in and placed them in an old bee cage to observe their life cycle. We will document this in a later post. 

When it came time to start preserving our tomatoes we were concerned that our plants had not produced as many as we had planned. A local farmer, and family friend, helped us there. We were able to purchase several batches of tomatoes from Clyde Acres Farm. 

We skinned, diced, and froze them as we waited until we were ready to make salsa. It was a lot of work, but we enjoyed working together on this project. After prepareing about 5 gallons we decided to do the rest as simply jars of diced tomatoes. We put up two batches of diced tomatoes, and ended up with 25 quarts. 

After processing the diced tomatoes we finally were ready to make salsa. We were lucky enough to have family visiting, due to the birth of our 6th child, and they provided a great amount of help to us. We chopped onions and peppers, mixed in all the spices, cilantro and garlic, and ended up with two very large stockpots full of salsa. The salsa came out very well, and filled 47 pint jars.  We will post the salsa recipe separately. With all the tomatoes and salsa we have processed, we are hoping that they will last us until next year. 

Our Growing Family

As our garden has been growing, so has our family.  It has been a long summer, filled with family, gardening, and fun. We've kept busy documenting through photographs, even if the blogging has been slow. We are looking forward to sharing all of this with you as things slow down. 

We have a few things we have been working on over the last few weeks that we are excited to share. One is the tomatoes we have been preparing for salsa, but that is for another post. The project that we'd like to share now has everything to do with the birth of our new son four weeks ago. 

We are all very excited to welcome this sweet little guy to our family!  He is baby number six. With every child that has graced our home we have had a tradition. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. As part of our religious faith we have a ceremony to officially give each child a name and a blessing, it is like a christening without the baptism. Baptism is performed later, once the child reaches  the age of accountability, and can choose for themselves whether or not they want to make the commitment. 

Anyway, as part of this process we have provided individual homemade blessing clothing for each of our children. Some have been made by babies grandmothers, and others have been sewed by mom.  Each of the outfits are slightly different, and all are made with lots of love. 

This time I used a new pattern. It required several alterations, as it was very feminine. Here are some pictures of the pattern and the end product. 

Pattern:

End product:

Of the alterations made some are quite obvious, the addition of the vest and bow tie for instance. Some of the other alterations were not quite as noticeable. The removal of the pleats from the bodice front, and the conversion of the sleeve from a short puff sleeve to a long sleeve were the other major alterations from the pattern. 

To accomplish these changes, and avoid damaging the original pattern, I traced the pattern pieces onto tissue paper.  The sleeve required removing a few inches of width and some height from the original pattern piece. 

Tracing the pattern also gave me the opportunity to make it a specific size without having to cut around the extra sizing lines. 

When I finally got to the cutting and sewing I was blessed to have my lovely mother in law here to help and motivate me. She designed the vest. 

Much of the actual sewing goes to her credit, as baby frequently needed my attention and we were in a time crunch. 

It was finally finished at about 2am, as I sewed on the last of the buttons and snaps. Here is how our precious little one looks in the outfit. 

I really enjoy sewing, though I rarely give myself the time to do it. I love being able to provide tangible memories for my children that they will be able to take with them when they leave home and start their own families.