Pinterest Find of the Day ~ Canning Tomatoes

    
     Did you ever wanted how many tomato plants do I need to have a pantry of tomato products for the year? I have. I love the idea of having my homemade tomato sauce on all our food. This will let me know my family is eating healthy and organic food. It will take out BPA, pesticides, and other chemical they add to the food.

Here is my find

     Here is a awesome site I found on Pinterest about knowing how many tomato plants it takes to fill up  my pantry.  According to Kris Bordessa  at Attainable Sustainable, she need 17-25 plants to feeed her family. Looking at what she has canned I think I would need half that amount. Which leads me to plant 9-13 tomato plants for my family. Check out her whole article Tomato Math -How Many Plant is Enough .   

Join me on Facebook at  Pa Gardeners and on Pinterest at Missy Life of a Working Mom to see what I am up too.

Gardening - 8 Weeks After Last Frost 2015- Weekly Goals

My garden book with my notes

     By having a journal you can see what was going on in the garden the years before and that will help you prepare for your garden this week. As you can see last year around this week it was super hot and my plants were dying. This note will help me be prepared for hot weather and think about my plants in pots. Do you keep notes on what's going on in your garden? Does it help you with your garden? 

Weekly Gardening Goals

1.  Plant Fall Seeds - I need to plant lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, and turnips.
2. Hornworms - I need to keep an eye out for Hornworms. 
3. Cleaning veggie and fruit - I need to make some veggie and fruit cleaner. 
4. Mulch - I need to mulch around the fence around the garden. 
5. Harvest - harvest squash, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, raspberries, and beans. 

This week I also want to work on my gardening goals for 7 weeks before last frost. What are you doing in your gardens his week? 

Check here to see what I did last week in the garden. 

Gardening - 6 weeks after last frost 2015 - weekly garden review 

Gardening - 7 weeks after last frost 2015 - weekly gardening goal review

Gardening - 7 Weeks after last frost 2015 - Garden Goals review

    I hate to say this but I'm going to perfectly honest. I didn't get any of my goals done this week. I don't want to lye and say I did. I know what your thinking then what did I do this week? Did I do anything around the homestead? The answer is yes we did a lot.

This week I 

1. 

   Hubby and I harvesting raspberries

   Harvested raspberries! We harvested over 3lbs worth. We harvest in the rain, and after work. You can read more about our adventure on my post Gardening- Harvesting Raspberries .
2.  We also bought $10 worth of corn last Saturday and we worked on storing it. On Monday night we froze the corn for future use. You will see a post about this later on when I finish with all my ways of storing my corn. 

   

   Freezing corn

3.  I also bought $20 each of blueberries and strawberries and cleaned and froze them for future us!!



Baggie of freeze raspberries

4. I also stored our raspberries that we picked this weekend by freezing them!  You can check out my post Harvesting and Storage - Freezing Raspberries for my step to step instructions for how to freeze raspberries. 
5. I also weeded around my vegetable garden and planted flowers. It's ready to be mulched. 

   

   My weeded area!

Last Weeks Garden goals

1. Rooting plants - I want to start to cut plants that won't seed and start to help them grow roots. I would like to do this to the lavender and rosemary. - didn't get to
2. Blossom Blight - It has rained her so much that I need to keep a good eye on my plants. I have to really keep an eye on the squash so it doesn't get blossom blight. - I didn't get to
3. Plant seeds for fall harvest - in all the areas around the garden that haven't gotten plants growning in them I want to start to plant carrots, turips, Swiss chard, brussel sprouts. - I didn't get too
4. Plant the plants that are growning - I have flowers and veggies to get in to the ground. I want to work on that this week. - started but didn't finish 
5. Mulch - mulch around the garden fence. I planted plants in it but the wedding are coming back so fast. I really need to mulch it - started but didn't get too 

Check here to see what I did last week in the garden. 

Gardening - 6 weeks after last frost 2015 - weekly garden review

Harvesting and Storage - Freezing Raspberries

Harvesting and clean raspberries

     After harvesting so many raspberries, we had to save them for use though out the year. This week we decide to save them by putting them in the freezer. I have 6 easy steps to have raspberries in the freezer. 

Laying out the raspberries and freezing them

How to Freeze Raspberries

1. Harvest raspberry/ or buy them
2. Clean them - soak them in 2-3tbsp of vinegar and gallon of water. I let them soak for about 15-20 minute. This kills bacteria and any bugs in it. 
3. Drain - I drain then and let them dry for a few minutes. 
4. Cookie sheet - Put them on a cookie sheet and speard them out. 
5. Freezer - I stick the whole cookie sheet in the freezer and freeze them for about 4-5 hours. 
6. Freeze Bag - I take a spatula and scoop the frozen berries off the cookie sheet and but them in a freezer bag. 

my 2/3 full gallon freezer bag of raspberries

     It's that easy! Then you have raspberries to cook with or eat frozen. Do you freeze any of your fruit? If so how do you freeze it?

Gardening - Harvesting raspberries

Mmmm raspberries on the vine

          This weekend red raspberries have come in! I was so excited. I love fresh fruit. We try to harvest more then we will eat in a week to freeze and us though out the year. It helps us save money. It give us free organic raspberries. 

I harvest these with Hubby on Sunday

     We had my niece and nephew over for the day on Friday and the picked about a half of pound. It was nice to see them picking them and having fun. 

Everyone helped even the dog 

     Hubby and I went harvesting on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. We took the dog with us. He love eating the few berries we dropped. We did find some black berries too. Mmmmm 

Here are the other ones harvested this week. One from cass and one with hubby. 

     We harvested about 2.5lbs of berries this weekend. It was a lot of fun and there are still many berries to harvest next weekend! Are you harvesting wild berries near you? If so what kinds are you harvesting.

Gardening and Harvesting - 2015

     Everything is starting to come in this week! I know I won't be getting a huge harvest but every little bit counts! 

Strawberries 

          Started to harvest around June 1st

                               2015 strawberries

 I have harvest 

•  .9
•  .5
•  .9
• .9

Total 3.2lbs for strawberries. 

Basil

     I start to harvest basil on June 8th . We planted basil in two places. One between the tomato plants, and the other in the herb garden. 

                              2015 Basil

 I have harvested

•  .01
• .01

Total .01lbs of basil

Asparagus 

         I started to harvest on April 29 and May 3rd. (I did leave some to grow into ferns, which will help the root system.

                            2015 Asparagus 

I have harvest 

•  13.1oz
•  13.4oz

Total harvested 1.65lbs of asparagus 

Mulberries 

          Started to harvest them on June 25th. We were behind on harvesting them so the birds got most of them. 

Mulberries on the scale 

•  .33

Total .33lbs for mulberries. 

Raspberries 

          Started to harvest around end of June.

My 1st raspberry of the season

I have harvested

•  .01
•  .43
•  1.25.
• .8

Total 2.49 lbs for strawberries. 

 Mini Purple Peppers 

          I harvest my 1st mini pepper before the 1st started to die. Lucky I only lost one in the transplant process. 

Mini Purple Pepper

I have harvested

• .25

Total .25lbs for mini purple peppers 

Yellow Squash  

          Started to harvest around July 5th, I'm so excited to have them growing very well. 

Yellow Squash

I have havested

•  2.14

Total 2.14lbs for yellow squash  

2015 Harvest 

10.08lbs harvested so far this year!! 

     It might not sound like a lot but I'm excite to have it harvest and 89.02lbs more pounds to go!! What are you harvesting out of your garden? How much have you harvest this year? 

Organization - Weekly Goals ~ July 6th-13th, 2015

I write my goals down it's easier for me. 

     This week I decide to start to write down my goals again. My life seem so busy, and one way to know what I getting done is to write it down! 

Weekly goals 

1. Garden Goals - I want to work on getting them done, Gardening - 7 weeks after last frost 2015 - weekly gardening goals ,this week. 
2. Reading - My goal is to scripture study for 10 minutes a day. I want to read, 4th of July by James Patterson. 
3. Cleaning - I want to focus on my cleaning cards. I need to get the house back in order. 
4. Work - I work Monday - Thursday this week. 
5. Workout - I want to workout 3x this week. It's time to get back in shape. 
6. Cooking- stick to the menu for the week. I'll post it for you tomorrow. 
7. Kids Kroner - make a lesson plan for our beach lesson this week. 
8. Community - make a care package for one of our friends over seas. 
9. Pets - make 2 chicken swings. These things will be so cool. 
10. Pets - buy hay and clean out chicken coop. 

What are your goals for the week? Do you write them down like I do?