HI Aquawise - thank you for this offer. Since i'm really limited on space in the veg garden i'm only looking to grow from my wish list. Thanks for the offer though.

now a days we live and work in near sterile conditions. We are very attuned with cleanliness and hygiene. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But in doing so, we have taken our bodies defences to the lowest common denominator. We have become germ-phobes. I remember many a time drinking from the garden hose, eating straight from the garden. All those micro-organisms did not kill me. I have eaten things on a DARE in my younger days, that I probably shouldn't have, but am still here to talk about it. lol.. (just the thought makes my mouth water in anticipation of vomiting.) Be responsible for yourself. If you choose to eat or can something that the Feds don't agree with, remember they are here to protect you. (smirk) This is a great place to find answers. However, the Dept of Agriculture will give you the best answers on what the Fed's believe is the safest thing for you. (they care, truly they do) "another smirk" remember, they have approved Montesano. Tell me that they haven't figured out a way to increase the amount of dietary allergies and sensitivities, so that our children are born with immunity deficiencies. All that require substantial medical intervention. Its BIG business, the federal government is one of the biggest businesses around. Isn't this a reason why many of us can? To be responsible for what we put in our bodies? What we choose to feed our families. I am not advocating irresponsible behavior concerning home canning endeavors. Be aware of the processing times and rules. If you have information that you trust, then use it. As you can tell I am pretty passionate about this subject. I tend to get a little cranky when rules get shoved down my throat. I am one of those people who play by the rules as they apply to me. I respect personal freedom. Especially my own. This post was edited by 4squaregardener on Wed, May 1, 13 at 13:16

Danni girl, I'm so glad you had such a great harvest and were able to put up so many tomatoes. That is just wonderful, and especially in a year with such challenging weather. I do slice the bite-sized tomatoes in half, but I leave the two halves attached to one another by a thin piece of skin so I only have to pick up and move half as many from the cutting board to the cookie sheet. For years I processed tomatoes the hard way and then, finally, last summer I broke down and purchased a Roma/Villaware strainer. I should have bought one 20 years ago. It is AMAZING how quickly it removes all the skins and seeds. I always thought of a strainer as a 'frivolous' purchase, but it saved me tons and tons of time. I don't understand why your dehydrator isn't drying the tomatoes more evenly. Is it on a fixed temperature or can you change it? Farmgardener, You're welcome. 'Me' is the only person I know how to be, and it is getting scarey. I am turning into my grandmother. (My mom didn't garden or can.) I like to think that my mammaw would be proud of the gardener and food preserver I've become. I still can't grow strawberries here in our clay like she could grow in her sandier soil, though. I like knowing where our food came from and how it was grown and processed. I like knowing I don't put chemicals on it. I like knowing it isn't contaminated by salmonella or e. coli and I especially like knowing our food traveled 100' from the garden to the house, and not 1500 miles across the country. And I like freaking out people who say things like "you grew it yourself?" or "you make your own pickles ( or salsa or jelly or whaever)". I don't even mind when they tell me that I'm a 'dying breed' and that the home food growing and preservation arts are becoming a "lost art". I, by the way, do not agree with that. I see both edible gardening and home food preservation coming back into vogue again. See, some of us have been doing all this food raising/food preserving for so long that we're back in style. LOL Megan, As you can imagine, it took me a while to type it up but I wanted to be as thorough as possible. I used to help my dad can his tomatoes and salsa in the 1970s (I was just a kid) so I knew it took oodles of tomatoes to boil down into a sauce and still, the very first time I turned 40 or 50 pounds of fresh tomatoes into canned sauce, I was shocked at how relatively little sauce I had to show for all that work and all those tomatoes! I had dabbled with dried tomatoes for a few years before a friend of mine here in Oklahoma conviced me to get more serious about it, and now I'm hooked on it. With the comvection oven, I can dry six cookie sheets of tomatoes at once. Finally y'all, I ought to stress that the garden and the processing of all the produce is possible only because I'm a stay-at-home wife/mom whose child is an adult and can take care of himself. I could NEVER do everything I do if I worked at a paying job or if I had young children, with young being anyone under at least the age of 16. Once they can drive themselves places, parents regain a certain amount of their freedom. Even though I do things on a larger scale, lots of folks here also raise enough tomatoes and other veggies to can them and freeze them and put them up for the non-gardening season. Sometimes on long, hot days when I've been in the kitchen seemingly all day, I get tired and frustrated because it seems like 'it's never gonna end'. Then, after the last freeze hits and the growing season is basically over, I feel really sad like 'I can't believe it is over'. And, of course, in the winter time, that's the real payoff...when you can do your 'grocery shopping' from the pantry, the freezer and the root cellar. Dawn

I've grown most of the paste varieties mentioned. I don't really like paste types and kept trying them to see if I could find one I liked. I have seeds for one (Paquebot Roma) that I need to try again. Most say it is the best paste type they've grown. I tried it last year and lost it to disease. Out of the ones Scott mentioned Viva Italia and Big Mama were very heavy producers. Everytime I've grown Big Mama I've had BER issues with the first flush. One year it was the only variety all year I had any BER fruit on. And I had the plants scattered around the garden and every plant had it. After the first flush little or no problems. I'm growing Amish Paste this year and many don't consider it a paste type like Dawn mentioned.I will know more later. It is the only known paste type I'm growing. I have a few others with what appears could be paste type fruit but won't know till I harvest them. On some of the seeds I'm sent they include very little information other than you should grow this. So often some question about what type, color I might get. Again my climate and soil conditions are so different than most of yours I'm sure that makes a big difference. In summary paste and cherry types have never been favorites of mine. I've had years I've never grown either. This year I've went overboard on Cherry types. Probably around ten varieties just from memory. I've grown the paste types for salsas but have found I like using what I call regular tomatoes better anymore. Jay