Pampered Chef is excellent quality for the most part. There is the very odd item that doesn't work as well as a person would like but this is the exception rather than the rule. It is also pricey. The onion chopper was passed along to me by a friend who was cleaning out her kitchen stuff. She isn't keen on cooking from scratch I don't think. I find it very handy. Didn't know it was one of those things they flogged on tv until I just looked it up. I'm sure you can find it on ebay for a lot less. PS you still have to do SOME onion work so tears will still be shed. It does do a nice neat job and saves time though. I just bought a cheap knife set at Costco the other day. We will see how long they hold their razor sharp edge. They are the color coated blades with matching blade covers. For what I paid if they last a year I will be satisfied. Here is a link that might be useful: Viladia chop wizard

The only persimmons we have are the native ones that grow wild here. We have those trees all over our property. I don't pick them until after we've had a hard freeze or two, which generally is November. They are strongly astringent before the first freeze, then they are much better after a freeze or two and even better if they've turned black. I do have to fight the coyotes for every single persimmon from the shorter trees because the coyotes will eat them while they're still green. I think that's why we have so many persimmon trees---the coyotes 'plant' the seeds after eating the fruit. Canned salsa is perfectly safe. Just follow the directions precisely and don't freelance or alter recipes. I made over 140 jars of Annie's Salsa last year and we give them to friends, family members, co-workers and neighbors, and no one has died yet. : ) So far, Annie's Salsa is my favorite of all the kinds I've ever made, and because you do add canned tomato paste to it, it has a texture/thickness much closer to that of commercially canned salsa. The folks who work with my DH love Annie's Salsa so much (we give it as Christmas gifts most years) that they almost cry if their gift bag doesn't have a jar of Annie's Salsa (some years I don't have 100+ jars of each thing I've canned, so they don't all get the same things in their Christmas gift bags). It amazes me that something so simple makes people so happy. Habanero Gold jelly is another great success story from the Harvest Forum. Frozen salsa can thin out a little when you thaw it because of the water content in the tomatoes. You can 'fix' it by stirring in a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste after you thaw it. You can sometimes prevent it by chopping up your tomatoes to make salsa for the freezer and then letting them sit in a colander or strainer over the sink for a couple of hours while all the excess moisture drains out. Most paste tomatoes are so thick and meaty that they don't give you watery salsa, but regular slicing tomatoes will because of their higher water content. For crisper pickles, use only pickling varieties of pickles, pick them younger and smaller, and pickle them as soon as you pick them--not a day or two later. Be sure you're cutting the ends off the cukes and discarding them. You also might want to try some of the recipes that call for the use of "pickle crisp" or for brining or fermenting. I freeze tomatoes all the time. I just put whole tomatoes in the freezer in ziplock bags, and then either use them for canning or cooking, but don't eat them raw half-thawed or fully thawed because I don't like the texture. For cooking, they taste perfectly fine. Most years I freeze gallons and gallons of bite-sized tomatoes after I've dehydrated them and we eat them for months and months. This year I haven't frozen much and haven't canned or dehydrated anything. Fires have kept me busy, so we've just given away all the extra tomatoes and peppers and stuff. I know I'll regret that this winter, but it is a priority to keep our firefighters well-fed and well-hydrated, so gardening/food preservation has taken a back seat to the work with the volunteer fire departments. I don't pickle okra, so cannot comment on it. Did you follow an approved recipe for pickled okra? If you did, I cannot imagine what went wrong. If your frozen okra turned black and slimey, I'm guessing you didn't blanch it first. If you don't blanch it, then the enzymes that cause ripening continue to be active and it can turn all slimey and black. I'd can salsa or any other tomato product with no fear whatsoever as long as I was using a safety-approved recipe. They all have enough vinegar, lime juice or lemon juice to give them the right (as in safe) pH. For Annie's Salsa, we liked it fine when made with vinegar, but then when I followed the safety-approved suggestion to substitute bottled lemon juice (bottled, not fresh-squeezed, because the bottled has a stable, tested, uniform pH level) and/or bottled lime juice, we liked the Annie's Salsa even more. We've canned hundreds of jars of Annie's Salsa during the last 5 or 6 years and haven't had a single jar go bad or a single person get sick from eating it. It is wise to be concerned about botulism, but with salsa properly canned, it isn't going to happen. I do hear a lot more about botulism with green beans or listeria with pickles, but that's because proper canning procedures weren't followed. For example, people will freelance and add some other vegetable to the green beans, which is a no-no, or they'll add oil or meat, also a no-no. Or, they'll use a boiling water bath canner for the beans, instead of a pressure canner, which is not safe. Lots of people make refrigerator pickles without canning them and that's where the listeria problem develops. Some old refrigerator pickle recipes that used to be considered safe have been found via modern-day testing to no longer be considered safe. So, as long as you're using current, tested, safety-approved methods, and not out-of-date, obsolete ones, you do not have to worry. It is good to be concerned about safe procedures, but not good to be paranoid. Canning isn't fun if you make yourself crazy with worry. : ) I freeze all my excess green beans. It is so much faster than canning and we like frozen better than canned. It probably depends on what you grew up with. I grew up on frozen green beans from the garden, so that's what I like. Some people grew up eating canned green beans, so that's what they like. Please don't be afraid of salsa. It is one of the simplest things to can. I believe salsa was the very first thing I canned on my own after I grew up and left home (used to make salsa with my dad when I was a kid) and I haven't had a single batch fail yet. The only thing I think is easier and more worryfree than salsa is jelly. Anyone can make jelly. I feel the same way about salsa though. With a safety-approved recipe that is followed exactly, anyone can make salsa. Even a caveman can do it.

I try a new early tomato every year. This year, Glacier was my earliest. They're OK. Early tomatoes don't impress me much. The best early I've grown was Matina. It was better to me than Bloody Butcher or Stupice. Personally, though, although it may not be considered an "early" tomato Jaune Flammee is always less than a week behind my earliest tomatoes, but even the first Jaune Flammee off the plant is as good to me as the best late season tomato. There is no early tomato that can compete with it for flavor, IMO. I try one new early variety every year just to extend the season a week, but I'd rather have more space in my garden for late season tomatoes, which are far superior in flavor.

This is my first garden (in its first year). Based in lafayette east bay hills. Grew so many EG plants without paying attention to "dry farming" etc. Now I am getting poor flavor compared to the EGs I can buy at Berkeley Bowl. Today I reduced my watering timer. Hopefully flavor will improve. Next year I will plan better. PS: I thought something was wrong with my seed variety (but I am wrong ... now that I know about the fact that flavor comes from "dry farming" and low watering). I am afraid it may take me several years before I can tune in the flavor. In the meantime I will look for alternate comparable flavor varieties which will grow under normal regular drip irrigation conditions.