Saturday we planted some beetroot raised in a cell, twenty of them. Towards the end of the day in they went. They look a bit wilty. Then on sunday, they looked like this: They had all perked-up a bit. We have three days of hot weather coming on, so we shall see how they fare. Oh yes, “Tomgate”, what is that all about then? To help with combatting the heat in the little greenhouse, my Bride came up with this “gate” to protect our toms, to keep out baddies, but let air in and out. These days, heat is more of a problem than it once was. Some of the toms have trouble dealing with the heat, who is normally their friend. This excess heat is manifested by the development of “green collar”. We have already had some of this. Never mind though, most of the toms grow merrily along. Here some moneymakers: I ought to have thought to take some pics before the picking and to shoe some examples of green collar. Ach, alas. Well mates, we are having a bumper crop of toms this year, with each plant having five and sometimes six bunches. Last night, we processed and processed and processed. Cutting, boiling, grinding, boiling again and finally potting-up the goods…the concentrate. It was getting late, in the meantime but at the end of the potting-up there were two of the six small pots that were leaking. We talked about what to do. We decided to just keep those two on the forefront of the pantry plank and mark them. After washing-up, we plopped down in front of the telly to unwind. All of a sudden, my Bride announced that the faulty lids did not sit well with her after all. What to do then? She said that we could just take the concentrate out of the jars and re-boil it and put them in new bottles. I popped down to the storage room near the garage. And…and….? Where are the clean jars then? I was certain that they were on the shelves in plastic bags. I looked and looked, but could not find them. I headed back upstairs with a hanging head. There were some washed but not sterile jars in the dishwasher. Just enough. Normally we use large 710mg jars; however, sometimes you do not need that much for a meal…that is where the smaller pots (450mg) come in. The pic above does not really show how large the jars really are, but these are the large pots, the smaller ones are at the other end of the plank. 01:30 and finally we were done. What a day, and night!
Sjoerd what a huge harvest. Setting jars over again must have been tough . Your tompaste will last thru a few months of those long cold winters. The best part of homemade foods is you know exactly what’s in them.
Thanks Pac. It was indeed a massive harvest. My Bride is wondering what we are going to do with the rest. Food Bank maybe? I am chuffed with the tom production this year.
Ship some extras to me…. I forgot to mention the screen your bride made for the greenhouse. Do you have any fans to regulate air flow with vents that open to help control temps. Even with all the greenhouse bells and whistles for temp control in my tiny greenhouse it’s way too hot since global warming hit here too.
Pac— No fans. I have three windows open and now the doorway. I am trapped between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. If I try and grow the toms outside they get the blight and die, if I grow them in a greenhouse, they get green collar. I think the latter is the lesser of two evils.
