The harvest continues

One upside of the drought is that the tomatoes are virtually fungus free this year. Often by late August, the tomatoes are almost completely defoliated and production is slowing down. This year, however, we’ve got tomatoes everywhere! We usually only can the Roma tomatoes, and they have been late for reasons we cannot imagine. Not cold weather, certainly. We’ve had a problem with squash beetles getting on the tomatoes when they are ripe. Hilda has resorted to picking the tomatoes a bit earlier and letting them ripen in her room.

Tomatoes ripening on every flat surface in Hilda's room

Labor Day weekend was busy with putting up. Jane came up on Saturday to make pepper relish, which is tradition in her family. I’ve mentioned before that we are having a bumper crop of peppers. We made two batches of pepper relish, ending up with 10 pints. I grilled the rest of the peppers the next day, took off the skins, and froze them. It always reminds me of cleaning pelts. I peel the skin off the outside, cut the pepper lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and put the flat, cleaned peppers in a stack. I feel like I should take them to the trading post next.

Sweet pepper harvest. Pepper relish takes half green and half red peppers

Jane grinds the peppers and onions

Peppers, onions, salt, sugar, and vinegar cook before canning

10 pints of pepper relish

I know I said we only had one peach in this year’s crop. I should clarify that we only had one GOOD peach. We also got a fair number of little runt peaches from some trees that have frozen back several times but not died. The peaches were astringent and not freestone, which confirmed Terry’s hypothesis that only the root stock had survived those tough winters. Peach trees come grafted—a hearty root stock on the bottom and a scion that produces a better fruit on the top. Terry only buys trees that have been grafted with freestone scions. On Labor Day, I decided to try pickling these runt peaches. The upside was that peaches are pickled whole. No trying to remove the pits. The downside was that these runts didn’t want to give up their skins even after blanching. And, being small, they were hard to handle and there was a bazillion of them.

Runt peaches with a quarter for size reference

I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks and quickly realized that pickled peaches were invented to use up astringent runt peaches. Eight pounds of “small, firm” peaches and 3 pounds of sugar. Soak the peaches overnight in the syrup with a cheesecloth-wrapped bouquet garni of clove and cinnamon. It seems like if you put rocks through a similar protocol, you would get something good to eat. Hilda had to finish the canning on Tuesday while I was at work. In three to four weeks, we will be able to taste the results.

Peaches steeping in sugar syrup with spices

Hilda continues to make interesting discoveries while she waters. This time it was two black swallowtail caterpillers in the parsley.



Black swallotail caterpillars on the parsley

Last weekend, I had to deal with the hot peppers and the sweet mini bell. I put jalapenos and mariachi pepper in the smoker and froze them. I also put up some hot pepper relish and canned whole jalapenos, whole mini-bells, and sliced jalapenos. After supper, I made a double batch of stuffed peppers to freeze. Sometimes it is a relief to get back to work on Monday.

Hot peppers, before

Hot peppers, after