What To Do With All These Tomatoes

Today, I want to talk to you about navigating homestead abundance when it feels like everything is happening at once: planting for fall, processing an abundant tomato harvest, livestock needing extra support in the heat, and personal things ramping up in the background. But mostly, today is about 120 pounds of tomatoes that appeared here yesterday during a week when I won't be around. We will also cover our usual Tuesday segments. Featured Event The Art of Containment: Practical Livestock Fencing, August 8th at 10am at the Holler Homestead in Lancaster, TN. Tickets ar $50, grab yours here All Holler Homestead Events: https://livingfreeintennessee.com/events/  Sponsor 1: DiscountMylarBags.com Sponsor 2: AgoristTaxAdvice.com/LFTN Tales From The Prepper Pantry 120 Pounds of Tomatoes Peaches: Final Harvest  ¼ bushel of green beans off 5 plants Time to plant the fall garden if you have not - for real, it is time! Moving from paper goods to washables where it makes sense Frugality Tip Say yes, but lean on community Operation Independence Seeking Farm Sponsors for our Farm To Table Dinner in September - how that works. Tomatoes All At Once Geraldines Story from A is For Cod-Wada: https://www.amazon.com/coda-wada-Geraldine-Duncann/dp/B0006YH9M2 THE MOMENT EVERY HOMESTEADER WAITS FOR: Michelle from Trippy Acres has too many tomatoes this is the day EVERY homesteader waits for - the moment someone says, can you take all this (WHATEVER) off my hands - and that whatever is a thing you love. Adjusted Monday schedule to harvest Admitted I wasnt processing last night to maintain health, but kept them all cool where? In my livingroom on a fold out table Processed them today - 120 pounds or so of tomatoes. A FAMILIAR RHYTHM: SORT - CUT - FREEZE - REPEAT GOAL is not homestead processing perfection, it is food spoilage stabilization. Works well post freezer: canned sauce, ketchup, salsa, stewed, freeze dried Must happen from fresh: Sundried, fresh Partial processing now helps future winter canning flow well Core and cut smaller to make it easier to process later as sauce Skins come off easily after freezing for stewed but before thawing, so store tomatoes you plan to skin as a single layer and only cored, not sliced smaller Dice the tomatoes you want for salsa in salsa batch sizes so that you can pull tomatoes for salsa straight from the freezer into the salsa pot Reducing sauce without heat by freezing and canned tomato water Keep Heat Outside Dehydrate and crockpot reduce sauces outside under cover (assuming you don't have a bear problem) to save adding heat inside Freezing for winter canning lets you heat the house int he winter while proc