Me too. I can't look at another tomato but I know I will be longing for a fresh one come February.

Ditto on thanks for all the help and sound advice. Coming to this forum has become almost a daily ritual I'm looking forward to what we might talk about all winter.

Abhaya

What? No winter canning? All sorts of great winter canning activities to be done especially if you have a good local source of produce. Not to mention store specials on meats and vegetables. Soups and stews top my list.

Dave

I agree, Dave, plus I freeze fruits and berries in the summer when I'm busy and make jam and other goodies in the winter. Standing over a jam pot in January is so much more enjoyable than standing over a jam pot in July!

Plus there's beef and venison, and the salmon are just starting the run here. And, of course, there are the discussions about what we made with what we canned and the new seed catalogs in February and root cellars and rum pots and fruitcake.....

Annie

And don't forget our friends on the other side of the world can post pics of their SUMMER and keep us going!! :-)

I'm nowhere near done!
I just stemmed almost 40# of Concord grapes. Most will become wine, but a little jelly too.
I've 1.5# of Rhubarb in the fridge to do something with.
I've still got chickens to butcher.
I'll go to one of the local farms that has a "End of Season" sale on Nov. 1st & 2nd to stock up on sweet potatoes, winter squash, winter apples, more green peppers for the freezer and who knows what else! It's all half price the last 2 days.
I'm going to have a bunch of green tomatoes.
I'll have a few more ripe (or sitting on the table RIPENING) tomatoes that will get used or frozen.
I've still got dry beans growing and the pods are still green, don't know how THAT'S going to turn out.
I think I'll pot up my pimento and jalapeno plants and see if I can keep them going inside long enough to get a few more.

Sheesh. I need a nap.

Deanna

I still have a lot to go

About 100# of tomatoes if I can ripen what's still out on the vine, which will be salsa, pizza sauce, paste, and regular sauce
15# of pears
20# of apples
A quart of habaneros (BBQ sauce and habanero gold)

Then, I need to put up lots of chicken and beef stock. After that, I plan to do some soups and stews.

Hopefully there will be some extra kale and broccoli to put in the freezer before the really cold weather hits.

I need to clean out the garden and will be building coldframes and buying and setting up a small greenhouse as well over the three day weekend. I'm getting tired just thinking about it.

Well alrighty then! You all are very spunky and encouraging! I do have lots of berries in the freezer. I just never even considered making jam in January, Annie. I have a feeling I might get inspired if I stick around here.

The garden does need to be cleaned up a bit and the boys are working hard to get the garlic in. I think they plan to plant about 80 lbs or so.

Deanna, what does happen to those dry beans that are still so green? We're doomed to lots of rain pretty soon. I have some Romanos that I never got to that I was sort of hoping to use for seed. I know they aren't a shelling bean per se but I would like to save some seed if possible.

Abhaya

Out of desperation, I just started heaving tomatoes into the freezer for when I had more time...and there are still a bunch of green ones out there that I'm not sure I even WANT to ripen. :D And there are all those apples. A whole lot of berries in the freezer too.

No, it doesn't stop for the Winter...at least not yet.

I'm close to done, but not quite. My problem is the same as last year - not enough jars. Even though I bought quite a few cases this summer, I canned probably twice as much as last year, so I still ran out, and of course all of the stores are out of them now. I did buy a couple boxes of jar lids, and I have enough odds and ends jar wise, to do a couple more things, and then that's it for me.

I found a local orchard that has Jonathan apples for $18/bushel, which is a good price around here, so I may make another batch or two of applesauce. There's also a lot of green tomatoes in the garage, and I was thinking of trying that Green Tomato Hot Dog Relish recipe, just hope I have enough jars for both!

Bonnie

Well I thought I was done. But just froze 9 Quart bags of acorn squash and 2 bags of shredded zucchini.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I harvested the last of the carrots, but it was a lot more than I realized. It came out to over 2 gallon bags of sliced carrots.

{{gwi:22389}}

A few of them were huge, should have pulled them a long time ago.

I decided not to grow the purple ones this year. When I used them in some chicken noodle soup last year, they turned the whole soup purple. Even though it tasted fine, it just didn't look very appetizing, LOL!

Bonnie

I had to get my kids back to school, so I took a much needed leave from canning for September. This weekend I finally made the fig jam I was planning from some fresh gifted figs, and I picked a pile of herbs to hang and dry. Now I'm feeling like I'm back in business!

I am jealous of all of you who are "sick" of tomatoes, since I lost almost all of mine to the late blight, sigh.

Plans for fall-early winter:
--bake/freeze some cheese pumpkin for holiday pies.
--Apple picking next weekend followed by applesauce, prepping ready made pies, etc.
--I have raspberries and blackberries in the freezer, portioned for jams, as well as two batches of tomatoes portioned for more salsa, which is being used up fast. No rush to work with this stuff until time allows.
--I'll pick up some broccoli, cauliflower and squash at the farm stands to freeze and/or store over the next few weekends.
--I'm going to try my hand at sauerkraut.
--con a friend out of some of the many chestnuts that she's been harvesting from her trees, and some quinces that are just about ready.
--And I'm dying to try curing some fresh green olives, which are available at our local produce market now.

I will be really dangerous once I get a pressure canner. Haven't even tried soups/broth etc. yet. Even with winter included for canning, I'm not sure there are enough hours in each day, ha.