Total work for Sunday (with the help of the tall kid and the dad):
- 7 bags of roasted tomato and garden vegetable sauce
- 1 1/2 gallons of 3-day pickles (to add to the other gallon that I made earlier in the week)
- 2 pint jars of jalapenos, garlic and salt water – set aside to ferment for 2 weeks, then will be made into hot sauce
- 1 bag of chopped jalapeno pepper, for the freezer
- 2 large bags of green pepper strips, for the freezer
- 2 large bags of chopped green peppers, for the freezer
That feels like enough for one day. Would anyone like to come and help me clean the kitchen?
Linked to White Wolf Summit Farmgirl, Frugally Sustainable, Gastronomical Sovereignty, Live Renewed. GNOWFGLINS, White Wolf Summit Farmgirl, An Oregon Cottage
lightlycrunchy 
Congratulations on work well done! Brought back lots of memories from my childhood helping my mom with the garden produce. Glad to see another generation learning these skills.
I remember all of the work going on around me, but mom scooting us out of the way of the kitchen. No such luck for our kid..
That’s so great! I need to organize my freezer like that.
No matter how organized it looks, you will always have to dig for that one thing that you need.
Inspiring – now I just need to plant something!
Great job for the teen..
I’m impressed. You have accomplished so much. I have a little question. I noticed jars in your photo. Do you store your canning in the freezer? I would have thought the jars would expand and break if they froze. Maybe they are only in there for this photo – showing all you have created. Please let me know. I’m trying to learn.
The jars you can see are my strawberry freezer jam. They are fine in the freezer as long as you leave a bit of headspace for expansion. I’ve only once had a glass jar break, but that was because I banged it against another one. I freeze stock in jars, too, no problem.
Beautiful produce. Mine have more woeful tales to tell. You’ll enjoy that hard work with every bag and jar you open over the winter. 🙂
Hopefully. Right now I feel like hoarding it. It’s fun to look at. 🙂
Impressive.
I have my rubber gloves on………….
I should have put some on when I was cutting the hot peppers. My hands are still burning.
that is not good – my son only grows hot peppers
apparently dry years make them hotter (is that a word?) – they definitely weren’t that potent last year
Holy moly – what a harvest, great job and cute helper.
I wish that was it, but there is much more to come..
Oh dang Heidi, you had to post that pic of your freezer!? Now I’m going to have to go out to the barn and gaze into the frosty mess and attempt to bring some order to things! Great job on using up/saving the harvest! The hot sauce sounds great…do you just put them in a brine (say 10%) then ferment and blend?
*anna
The freezer only looks good because we defrosted one, cleaned it all out and then organized everything going back into the two freezers – one for meat, one for produce. It definitely cuts down on the trips to town for groceries.
The hot sauce is something that I found here: http://frugallysustainable.com/2012/05/a-recipe-for-homemade-homegrown-cayenne-pepper-hot-sauce/
I’ll write about it if all goes well. Though with it being so dry this year, the peppers are so blisteringly hot, it might be too hot to use.
If it turns out too hot you can always cut it with salsa perhaps.
Wow, that’s a ton in one day, amazing! And great job to your helpers!
Unfortunately, it’s just one day of more to come. But it’s great to have the helpers.
I want some of those peppers!
I wish you could come and take some away. Somehow we decided that two rows was a good idea.. We can’t keep up to them all.
What a fabulous bounty from your garden. I end up with one or two of each thing daily so have to collect foods over a few days to be able to come up with something not even close to what you have in one day collected. Love the freezer. Are you a closet perfectionist?
No, really far from it – it’s only neat because we have two, finally emptied one and cleaned it out and separated and sorted everthing else. It’ll be back to the usual chaos by the end of the month, as soon as we start digging for stuff. But it looks good now, doesn’t it?
LOL it sure does look good now.
Fantastic Heidi!!!! Way to go!!! I’m jealous, but so eager to copy you, haha. If we were closer, I’d definitely help with clean the kitchen. What a great day you guys had!
I’d take you up on it, too. Funny, when it came time to clean up, the rest of the crew had disappeared.
Exceptional achievement! I love looking at your homegrown produce!
Surely there’s nothing more satisfying than a freezer full of healthy, home grown labelled food. (I have such freezer envy!) I bet the flavours in those vegetables are so much more intense than supermarket fruit and veg. Well done.
They do taste better to me than store bought, though who knows, maybe it’s all in my head.
Heidi, you must be SUPERWOMAN to have accomplished so much. I definitely envy you. Carolyn
Nope, just motivated. If I don’t do something with it all, we’d be buried alive by it.
Heidi,
That is a great harvest and store for just one day. I agree with the others that commented about your great organization skills in that chest freezer. You are an inspiration. Have a good week.
Thank you, you too. My week should be a little less freezer intense this week, now that I’m back to work, but I’m sure we’ll have another garden harvest this weekend.
I truly envy your deep freezer! Next year! I’d love to help you clean. Dangit. Wish I were actually close enough! Imagine the trouble the littles would get into…
Geez, yes. Scary, the thought of that. Fun, though.
WOW! This makes me want to cry. This is what I had in mind this year. I HAVE to get out of this state. And this heat.
Do you get an opportunity to move soon? Or no, you just wrote something not too long ago about moving, didn’t you. You have other things to keep you busy this year and next, too. There’ll be lots of time for a garden another year, when there is the energy to deal with it.
Do you just chop the peppers and put them in a baggie? Then do you use them in soups and such? I’m thinking we have a TON of jalepeno’s and there is only so much pepper jelly, relish and pickled peppers a gal needs. But I can see us using chopped peppers in stir frys, soups and stews.
I chop them, then lay them on a cookie sheet and freeze them for a few hours that way first (it keeps them from all freezing together in a clump), then pack them in baggies. I use them on pizzas, sauces, etc. It takes care of some of the food prep for me, plus I can use my garden produce all year long.
Great idea, especially the pizza, we eat that all the time.
I updated the post with a link to a previous post about freezing chopped vegetables, too. I should have done that when I wrote it.
you really do have such beautiful photography 🙂
…and you’re doing incredible things with summer! jealous!!
today is the Wednesday Fresh Foods Blog Hop – I was hoping, if you feel up for it, that you’d link up this fabulous post (and any future fabulous, seasonal and/or real food posts) with us Everyone is welcome so feel free to stop by. take care! xo, kristy
I will. Thanks.
thank YOU 🙂 i love this post. the photography really is great. i can just FEEL the summer…
thank you for taking the time to share with us at The Wednesday Fresh Foods Blog Hop – we hope to see you again this week with more incredible posts! xo, kristy