Matt, We definitely have full sun here, so our challenge is to keep the fruit shaded. I'll concede that folks like Diane and I likely have entirely different challenges than those faced by urban or suburban gardeners. My plants produce better if I can site them where they only get 6 to 8 hours of sunlight in July and August, but that's hard to do in a garden that mostly has full-sun exposure. Some folks here erect shade cloth (50%) over their tomato plants using PVC hoops to suspend the cloth above the plants. They feel like it helps prevent sunscald on developing fruit and keeps the plants producing better in the heat. I've experimenting with shading the plants a little, but not much. Summertime is just too busy if you have a large garden, fruit trees, berries, flowers, a yard to mow, etc. This year, if it is a typical, hot, dry summer, I may try to find the time to put up shadecloth and see if I think it makes a difference. No one here in Love County that I personally know does any pruning at all except to keep pathways clear or to removed diseased limbs. Most of those folks do garden on a large scale like I do, so the time needed to prune their approx. 200 plants would make doing so impossibly difficult. Boomer, I not only don't have time for pruning in the summer, but I rarely have time for anything else other than maintaining the garden and putting up the harvest. (I'm not complaining---I love doing it all.) A lot of y'all probably aren't blessed with gobs and gobs of sun like Diane and I are. Living in a rural area can be a mixed blessing. With wide-open spaces, you have lots of good air flow which can help minimize disease too, but the downside is that the high winds that accompany thunderstorms or strong squall lines can blow over plants--even if they are caged and well-staked. There are other ways to prevent foliar disease besides pruning too. Most years I don't have much trouble with it at all....last year was worse than most because it rained every day or every other day and we had Septoria Leaf Spot, which we seldom have trouble with. If you mulch every square inch of your garden soil to reduce soil splash (and I do), and if you water using soaker hoses, drip irrigation or some other method that keeps water off the foliage, that helps a lot. You also can spray preventatively with cholorathalonil...something I say I'll do every year, but then never do because it doesn't fit it with my organic philosophy. I'd say "but this year I really AM going to spray with Daconil" only y'all would laugh because I say that every year and don't do it. Proper plant spacing helps reduce disease but I don't tend to abide by spacing rules very well. Remember if you do engage in pruning and pinching blossoms that you should disinfect your pruners (and your fingers if you're pinching) each time you finish one plant, below you move to the next. Otherwise you could be inadvertently spreading disease from plant to plant without realizing it. Dawn

I put my 6" to 12" suckers in water vessels for about a month... and keep them in the shade. Bear in mind I live in a comparatively hot, arid climate, relative to most places in the USA... so dessication is an obvious threat to any plant that lacks an extensive root system. My suckers exhibit profuse rooting after about a month, and then I pot them in loose soil. Cool weather and cloudy skies (such as our "gray May" and "June gloom") promote the survival of these delicate upstarts. By the time our August heat arrives, my tomato plants will need extensive rooting systems in their 10 gallon pots, and even then I have to shade the plants on hot days. Potted plants like those in my backyard simply cannot hydrate fast enough to keep up with the loss of sustaining moisture, lost through transpiration, in desert-like weather.

You're asking the big questions, Anele, & you are getting a lot of wonderful responses that are speaking to Truth, if not providing concrete "answers." There is something to be said for Surrender...accepting that we don't have all the answers & never will. Life is largely a mystery that can't be contained by our minds- within our concepts & thoughts about it. But while we will never have all the answers tied up with a bow, there are pointers! A common theme you see over & over on this thread is the redemptive nature of adversity. Repeatedly, we see that without losses, hardships, suffering, the better angels of our human nature would not have been revealed, much less developed. We can't help but conclude that ultimately, Suffering, the situation we would never ask for, serves a purpose in our evolution as humans. I like this quote from Eckhart Tolle- "Even within the seemingly most unacceptable & painful situation is concealed a deeper good, & within every disaster is contained the seed of grace." Another pointer I see expressed on this thread is to be careful how we label things! Do we really know (since life is so mysterious) what is "good" or "bad?" Here is one of my favorite stories that illustrates the wisdom of not labeling experience. "Maybe"- A Chinese story, kind of a Taoistic story about a philosophic farmer: One day, the farmer's horse ran away, and all the neighbors gathered in the evening and said that's too bad. He said "Maybe." Next day, the horse came back and brought with it seven wild horses. "Wow!" they said, "Aren't you lucky!" He said "Maybe." The next day, his son grappled with one of these wild horses and tried to break it in, and he got thrown and broke his leg. And all the neighbors said "Oh, that's too bad that your son broke his leg." He said, "Maybe." The next day, the conscription officers came around, gathering young men for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. And the visitors all came around and said "Isn't that great! Your son got out." He said, "Maybe." Often we decide what is good or bad too hastily, while Life's wisdom unfolds...

There's a difference between canning something that "might make you sick" and canning something that "might kill you!" If you can acid foods improperly, you might get some mold and related sickness problems. But if you can a low acid food improperly, you might get deadly botulism. Modern tomatoes are on the borderline of being acid, which is why modern tomato canning methods usually add a bit of lemon juice or citric acid to the canning jar contents when doing tomatoes with a boiling water bath. If you mix low acid vegetables with mildly acidic tomatoes, there is no way of knowing if it will be acid enough. Carrots are NOT acidic. Here is a link to a chart on the acidity levels of various fruits and vegetables. Not the best chart, but things at the top of the diagram are acidic, and things at the bottom are not. Tomatoes, as you will see, are on the border. National Center for Home Food Preservation Acid/Alkaline Chart You've added a plethora of low acid ingredients to tomatoes, which were already on the border of what can be canned safely using a boiling water bath. That includes carrots, basil, oil, peppers, and garlic. There is no way of knowing if it is acid enough to prevent the growth of botulism. Also, you have not created a vacuum seal by just using hot water to create the seal. It may or may not be a long-lasting vacuum seal. I have had seemingly tight seals that were not vacuum sealed come undone, even though the seals "popped." A vacuum seal is created when AIR in the jars gets really hot and expands. Then, as the jar cools, the air contracts and creates the tight seal. Again, now way of knowing if this happened in your jars. That's one reason for the BOILING part of Boiling Water Bath canning, to create temperatures high enough for the expansion of the air molecules in the jars. Lastly, you have not really sterilized your jars in any way, so regular old nasty bacteria could grow in your sauce, along with botulism in the low oxygen environment. So you're taking three types of risks. I would never subject myself to this kind of thing, particularly when one of the risks is death by botulism. How great a risk it is--impossible to say, but I make it a habit to avoid known death risks as much as I can. There are plenty of similar canning recipes in the Ball Book of Canning and Preserving that I know have been scientifically tested for safety. So why risk it. I would take the sauce out of the jars, boil it for 20 minutes and then just freeze it. Problem solved.