I have been growing my tomatoes this winter and even though we had some significant frost, I managed to survive about 12 tomato plants. These guys, with their trunks now the size of a nice starter tree have surprised me! I got most of these tomatoes as mystery tomatoes from Noble roots Farm in Eustis, Fl. the ones that survived were oxheart, and orange accordeon tomato. Both are delicious!

I planted a whole fresh batch varying from cherry tomatoes to beefsteak in January. I bought all of those seeds from Mary at Mary’s heirloom seeds and so right now, i have tomato plants everywhere with flowers and tomato starts. I planted some really nice varieties cuostralee, zapotec Oaxacan ribbed tomato, marglobe, san marzano, and some others. When these are done, I will be canning more of them because even though we eat quite a few tomatoes on bread, as tomato salad, and with lettuce, we get so many that canning is a great option to make the fresh tomatoes last through hot season when our tomatoes really do not grow due to the heat.

As you can see here, I peeled my tomatoes before canning.

I saved the peels and these are now in the dehydrator drying so I can powder them when they are all dry. This powder can be reconstituted to tomato paste by adding 1 part powder to one part water. The powder smells like powdered to go soup, it smells so good!

Canning is done, and my peels are drying. My jars are sitting on my counter to rest till tomorrow. Then I will remove the bands, wipe them down, and store them in my canning pantry.

Right now, I am going to pour a cup of tea and ponder over my next adventure – dinner.

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