We have made it a tradition in our family to visit the corn maze every year. We have managed to do it with kids in a stroller, kids in a hiking backpack, and kids making the decisions on where to turn, but we have kept the tradition alive! Personally, I love the maze. Sometimes I think everyone else just humors me. There’s just something fun about making decisions together as a family (or group) in a way that doesn’t have any serious consequences. There is probably some psychology term for that. But it’s fun to ask a preschooler to make the decision every once in a while, just to see where you end up.
I always forget by the time it’s next harvest season (or even next growing season), so I’m writing a post, simply for my memory, but feel free to follow along!
This year, I planted sooo many seeds and most of them died. the only thing that survived were my tomato plants (and I planted a ton of them, thinking I’d sell them or give some to family or neighbors. But by the time I got them in the ground, I didn’t wanna give them to everyone else because they were not in great shape. They needed to be planted sooo much sooner, not halfway into June! But I have toddler twins, and a super active preschooler (still technically a toddler when I was growing from seeds and planting), and needed help to get them in the ground. I intended to keep track of how many plants were out in the garden, but… I didn’t.
When we harvested all the tomatoes before the freeze, 99% were still green. But when hey did finally ripen, they were pretty yellows and purples and some nice round reds. I got about 10 green tomatoes and 1 (count it) white tomato. I think I had more white, but they ended up in the green salsa/enchilada sauce because they didn’t look like they would ripen well (which is how I decided which green tomatoes to select).
From those 10ish boxes of tomatoes, I’ve gotten
17 pts freezer green salsa (somehow I messed up and it made a ton so I didn’t feel safe canning it)
31 pts regular salsa (a batch of 8 used the only peppers I got from plants I bought on clearance and the onions my MIL gave me. The jalapenos were smaller than my fingernails, but I had a few good poblanos and some mini bells, some Cajun bells [spicier?], some seranoes, and some spicy banana peppers) 23 jars used serranoes, Jalapenos, and green bells.
7 pts green salsa (I labeled it small batch green salsa to keep track of 2 different recipes I’m trying this year )
7 qts stewed tomatoes
6 qts spicy stewed tomatoes
1 batch of bbq sauce (I’ll have to update the total, but I think I got about 14 half-pints of sauce)
18.5 qts green enchilada sauce
9 qts of stewed tomatoes (forgot the salt, dang it!)
4.5 qts of leftovers from previous batches (mixed stewed and rotel/spicy stewed)
16 pts of salsa (jalapenos and green peppers only)
12 qts of whole tomatoes
12 qts of tomato juice (one jar was a hand-me-down from my grandma and isn’t quite a quart, but there’s another hand-me-down jar that is probably over a quart, so I’m just rolling with it)
11 qts whole tomatoes (forgot the salt in 4 of them again! And I had the *worst* luck. In one batch I only had 1 jar seal!)
32 pts of green salsa with very little heat. I ended up doing the math wrong and making way more than intended, but it used up all the greens I had left, so I wasn’t complaining!
14 jars (assuming they all seal, as they’re cooling as I type) of herb tomatoes. And I am DONE with tomatoes. whew.
I also bought 3 boxes of tomatoes (in case mine never got ripe), 1 box of peaches (all they had was white when I went to buy them. I looked at a comparison chart and I’m guessing they’re Georgia Belles?) and 1 box of pears around mid-September. In which, I got:
canned sliced peaches (when I actually count this, I need to remember I’ve already snitched one jar)
canned quartered pears
multiple varieties of mixed fruit (note, some of the mixed fruit came from my friend delivering fruit from her tree and my MIL giving me a box of peaches. Most of my MIL’s peaches went into jam this year, though because the peaches didn’t know if they were gonna be too firm or too mushy and were varying combinations within the same peach)
34 qts of whole tomatoes
So… how much does approximately 10 boxes of tomatoes weigh? I measured it all because I was curious.
I used:
7 1/2 lbs green
4 1/2 lbs green
30 lbs green
17.5 lbs green
5 lbs ripe
1 1/4 lbs ripe
5 lbs ripe
10 lbs ripe
14 lbs ripe
11 lbs ripe
5 lbs ripe
12 lbs ripe
5 lbs ripe
10 lbs ripe
12 lbs ripe
22 lbs ripe
22 lbs ripe
3 lbs ripe
25 lbs ripe
So, just under 60 lbs of green and 128 (and change) pounds of ripe tomatoes!
I also turned our tomato skins into tomato sauce (because a), paste scares me, and b), I think sauce has more uses). The first batch (which included leftovers from last year that I never processed – just left in the freezer – started out as 20 qts of skins and turned into 3 3/4 qts (in 20 different half and quarter pint jars). The second batch is still sitting in the fridge waiting for processing, (it’s not nearly as much, but with all the heirloom tomatoes, the bowl is quite colorful).
Also of note: I bought 200 regular Tattler lids and 100 wide mouth Tattler lids. At the end of canning season, I have 0 regular and 35 wide-mouth lids left. I would have had less but I don’t like doing tomatoes with tattler lids, so I finished off the tail end with the normal kind I had in storage. Seriously, I bawled my eyes out one night. I have never had so many problems canning. I have had great success with the tattlers in water-bath canning, but canning in the pressure canner… yeah. lets just say that the night I bawled, I got 1 successful jar in 2 canner loads (noted above). And a huge exploded mess inside the canners. I don’t think I need all 100 tattler lids in the future, to be honest. But I definitely could use more regular mouth lids!
I have converted this recipe (because I hate recipes that are variable, and this recipe is sooo easy to mess up with their instructions!) from the Ball Kerr website (they must have caught on, as it’s no longer available. I might try this one, though).
4 1/4 lbs green tomatoes
1 lb peppers
1 1/4 lbs onions
4 cloves garlic
1 cup lime juice
20 grams cilantro, stems and leaves
4 tsp cumin
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
Dump tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic and lime juice in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add cilantro, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper and simmer 5 minutes.
Ladle hot salsa into a hot jar leaving a ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rim. place lids and rings.
Process filled jars in a boiling water canner for 30 minutes, adjusting for altitude (you will most likely need less, I live at 5000 ft). Turn off the heat, remove jars and let cool. Check for seal after 12-24 hours.
This one is also modified in measurement methods. It comes from this website. I have labeled it “small batch” so that I can compare the difference. I will update on which I like better in the future.
6 green tomatoes, chopped in large pieces
2 green peppers, chopped in large pieces
2 small onion, quartered
6 cloves garlic
20 oz parsley
1 long hot pepper
2 limes zest and juice (I peeled the limes with a peeler, scooped out the insides, and tossed it in the food processer with the pepper)
To start off with, I got this recipe from this website (and she says she got it from the Ball canning book in 2014, but I didn’t fact check that), and the author has a lot of good notes, please go check it out. I’m only writing here so that I can remember how I changed it in the future.
I really wanted something with beets because real v8 uses beets, but I can’t find anything I trust, really. And since most of the recipes I found (okay, ALL of the recipes I found) called for waterbath canning methods, I didn’t want to add a very basic (as in contrast to acidic) ingredient without an official recipe to follow.
2.5 oz celery. About 2 medium stalks or 3/4 c
3 oz bell pepper. A little less than 1 or 3/4 c
3 oz carrots. About 2 small carrots (I used 1 small and 1 med and had about 2″ left of the med) or 3/4 c
3 oz onion. About 1 small to medium onion or 1/2 c
5 g fresh parsley. Which is only about 4 sprigs, or ¼ cup
22 lbs tomatoes. The recipe says about 65 medium, but I have so many sizes I only went by weight
3 tablespoon salt, to taste (original only had 1 T and that wasn’t nearly enough in my opionion.
1/4 c worcestershire sauce (not in the original recipe, but when I did my research, it is more acidic than what the jar needs to be at, so I felt safe adding it).
1 T Lemon juice PER JAR
1/4 tsp citric acid PER JAR
Prep all the veggies before you weigh them. I did thin slices for the celery and carrots, dices for the peppers, huge chunks for the onions (though my mom would have blended them in the blender to get as much onion flavor as possible), pinched off the heads of the parsley leaves, and quartered the tomatoes.
In a smaller (only in comparison, it was still 5 qts, which – aside from canning – is my largest) pot, place the carrots, onions, and about 5 lbs of tomatoes (don’t know for sure how much it was, because I measured everything out beforehand and then just grabbed enough to fill the pot decently. Squish the tomatoes with a potato masher to get enough liquid you don’t just scorch your carrots. Bring to a medium-high heat and simmer (you don’t want to burn anything) about 20 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients into a large stock pot (It filled my waterbath canner full! But when you mash the tomatoes, it’s not so scary). Start the heat out low so it doesn’t scorch while you’re trying to get enough liquid from the tomatoes to get everything to a simmer. As more liquid works its way out, and as it becomes easier to stir, turn it up to a medium (maybe medium-high, but on my stove, that burns it.
After the 20 minutes for the first (“smaller”) pot, add it to the large stock pot. It will take a while for the big pot to get to a simmer (and you may have to turn your stove up), but the carrots had a head start in the other pot, and the warm liquid will help the large pot get there a little faster. Once it reaches a simmer, let everything stay at a simmer for 20 minutes, giving your carrots enough time to cook down. You’re still going to have to stir frequently! But the longer it simmers, the easier it is to stir.
let cool for a few hours (it took us about 3 hours before we didn’t feel like we were going to burn ourselves), and then send it through the victorio (Food mill). As the bowl collecting juice gets full, place it in a clean stock pot and keep going until all the juice is processed. I like to send the skins and seeds through one more time and then re-mill about 2-4 cups of juice through just to get all the little pieces to work out, but that might be overkill?
Place the now-smooth(er) juice on the stove and heat it, but don’t worry about getting it to a simmer. Ladle juice into warm sterile jars, add the lemon juice and citric acid to each jar, and wipe off the rims. Add lids and rings.
Process jars in a water bath canner for 50 minutes (I’m at 5,000 altitude. You probably need less). Let cool and test for seal after 12-24 hours.
Of note: this recipe is supposed to make 7 qts. I ended up with 12! I processed it anyway, because 1) you add the acid to each jar, so I felt confident in the acid being there, and 2) If anything was extra, it was tomatoes, and not veggies.
2 qts vegetables (3 c onions, 3 cups green peppers, 2 c celery)
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbs lemon juice (to taste. but note, it’s supposed to be 2 tbs IN EACH JAR. I tried it that way once. It was soooo nasty. Citric acid in the jars is a better bet)
1 1/2 tsp of salt per jar
Heat vegetables and 2 qts tomatoes to warm, then add the rest of the tomatoes and the garlic. Heat to warm. Add lemon juice to taste noting that there is going to be salt added to the jars.
Notes: there is usually extra (as in more than 7 qts full) but I didn’t want to work the math to tweak the recipe down as this is the ratio I see given most often in other recipes and I know with tomatoes you have to be very careful not to tweak proportions. Most of those recipes are water bathed and in my research, it sounds like water bathing any tomatoes is a dangerous idea if you’re adding any other vegetables. That being said, I’m just an internet junkie and do not have enough knowledge to be an authority (AKA, Use this recipe at your own risk).
I am in the thick of canning season this week, and Summer’s got a vacation planned, so we talked about it and decided that we were gonna take the week off! We figured it’s October, the weather is perfect, we were going to have a week of unstructured activities, just to give ourselves a break. I’ll still be posting, but it will be harvest facts. All of my tomatoes are ripe from picking them green last week (okay, not all of them, but an overwhelming amount en masse), and it is time for my yearly duty of keeping track of numbers so I have a better idea of what I’m doing next year. So, if you are tuning in for the activities, see ya next week. And if you wanna read boring garden facts, stay tuned!
I have had the idea of putting small objects in ice cube trays for quite a while, but I couldn’t find the pompoms I have somewhere in my craftroom-mess-that-is-now-storage. I did, however, come across a box of halloween trinkets! That discovery is both helpful now and will save me a ton of trouble in a few weeks, when I can hand them out to trick-or-treaters. I thought for sure our city would follow all the neighboring cities and ban festivities, but they’re still allowing trick-or-treaters.
The spiders are bigger than I wanted for this activity, so I’ll probably still do it again with the pompoms when I find them, but it’s still a good activity for finger control and hand-eye coordination. And it’s festive!
In case you need instructions, get an ice cube tray and a pack of plastic spiders. Place the spiders in the tray, and hand them to your toddler!
I gave the trays to the girls first thing this morning, while I was making breakfast. It kept them pretty distracted, actually! I had time to finish breakfast and come sit and play with them!
When they started getting bored with that, I turned the trays over and showed them that the spiders could fit between the trays, too! Truth be told, I think these spiders are much more entertaining with the back of the ice cube trays, because they’re thin so they fit between and can slide around the little mounds for the ice.
One twin played with the spiders and trays until naptime, eagerly coming back after her breakfast was all gone. I’m glad she enjoyed it, but it goes to show that even the simplest things that you don’t think will entertain a toddler can hold such mystery and exploration. I think that’s my favorite thing about toddlerhood – the general fascination with and ability to learn from anything.
Years and years ago, I made bat decorations with my now-teenager. I kept them for quite a while, putting them up year after year. Sadly, since they’re made from paper pulp, so they got pretty bent and hashed. In thinking of some fun Halloween activities, I decided to have a go at egg carton bats again!
The nice thing is, since teenagers seem to thrive on nostalgia, I was able to get my teen in on the activity, too, and the 3 of us had very different interpretations of how to paint them! My teen used her creative talent to mix purple and black into interesting combinations (there’s an ombre one and one with a mottled black over purple, just so you get the idea). I am boring and stuck with all black – a classic. And the preschooler? Well, apparently painting is boring. she was done within 5 minutes and wishing we’d let her glue eyeballs on it already.
I broke out some moon and lightning confetti in hopes to increase her patience. I don’t think it worked very well, but it did give her something else to do while the teen and I finished. I have had this confetti since high school. Back in the dark ages before texting, I used to stick confetti in my passed notes at school. Sadly, after the bats, it got pushed onto the floor, and it had to be vacuumed up before toddlers could eat it.
I wish the preschooler had had more patience, but I guess that will come with more time. At least, I hope. She is kind of my queen of “onto the next great adventure!” so one of the hardest things for her is being patient and holding still.
After we were all done, I strung strings through them and hung them over our piano. I have tons of decorations in storage, but since the basement is under construction, I just don’t think I’m gonna put anything else up this year. At least we have obviously home-made bats to show off, eh?
unless your child has no patience (as demonstrated by my kid)
I have been up to my ears in canning, and I’m getting pretty tired of tomatoes, so it was kinda nice to have some other commitment and goal that took me away from jars and canners and boxes and boxes of tomatoes to play with my kids. We didn’t do anything fancy, today, just grabbed a few rubber bands and some bread pans and made … well, they’re not really guitars, lets be honest. But they would make some semblance of music while I was testing them out and getting them ready.
This activity was really easy to set up! It helps if you have plenty of rubber bands and can be selective, but the bigger variety, the more enjoyable it is. Just slide the rubber bands onto the bread pan, and then pass it to your kid.
At first, when I handed them to the girls, they kinda stared at me like, “okay, and?” But by the end of playing, they knew the general idea enough to explore on their own.
I was kinda hoping we could focus on finger isolation (using different fingers for individual tasks. Totally looked it up, haha!) because I noticed that although one girl was great at pointing, her sister hadn’t really figured it out, yet; so I wanted to strengthen her ability to point. This activity *could* help with that, And I showed them how to use 1 finger to strum, but in all honesty, it was more fun to just let them explore the world of sound and get all fingers involved!
I sat with them and showed them how to strum the rubber bands for about 15 minutes, and then just let them explore! They pulled on the bands, and pushed, and even turned the pans over to figure out what would happen by playing with the rubber band from the other side! I left them out while I canned, and they’d come back to play throughout the day.
And yes, I know my bread pans are well loved… I don’t make fresh bread enough that it’s worth buying a different set! In fact, I am terrrrrrible at making bread. even pre-made, Rhodes-type stuff! There’s a trick to getting it to rise, and I just don’t know that trick (send me all your tricks in the comments!)
My preschooler uses pony beads a lot in therapy to help her build strength in her hand muscles, increase hand-eye coordination, and to work on her pincer grasp (I’ve talked lots about the pincer grasp). It helps that she likes beads, I’m sure. She also loooooves Halloween. So, since it’s October, most of our activities will be tied to Halloween! Play to their interests, haha!
There was just one problem, although I have Orange beads, and orange pipe cleaners, they’re buried in storage while my basement is under construction (for-ev-er). I decided to give Joann online ordering and curbside pickup a try. Not my favorite, I’m not gonna lie! first of all, operator error, our pipe cleaners are only half sized! I mean, I should have looked closer, I guess, but, eh. They were bright colors! The orange beads were perfect, though. And now I have a ton of them.
I set up a little spider web-like-thing for her to string beads onto, by folding the pipe cleaners in half and wrapping them around each other for the smaller one and just making little loops for the bigger one. I’ve gotta say, I kinda prefer the shorter pipe cleaner but creating loops at the end so it is the size of a full-length pipe cleaner. So I guess operator error worked out in my favor. Below is a picture of the bigger one. I have set up 3, because she kept wanting to make more!
After that, I handed it to her and let her add beads! She added them all the way to the very end, so I had to take a few off, but obviously that’s not that difficult to do. You want to leave about an inch for the end. which is hard on the smaller pumpkin (hence why I recommend the larger size, but most of you wont buy the wrong sized pipe cleaner, anyway, so the recommendation is not important. You’ll just have to fold them around each other instead of looping them).
After they’ve added all the beads they want (and after you remove some, if necessary, to get enough room), twist and wrap the pipe cleaners together and then wrap a green pipe cleaner around the combined bundle. Take another pipe cleaner and twist it into curly-q’s and add it to your pumpkin.
This pumpkin is currently sitting on my piano (up high, because the toddlers like the bright colors and instinctively know it’s something they’re not supposed to have, so they kept trying to get it when it was lower, and I enjoy looking up at it. Maybe it’s the bright colors, maybe it’s how proud my daughter is of being good at stringing beads. Or maybe it’s because although I love Halloween almost as much as my preschooler, I just don’t have the time or the space to set up all the Halloween decorations this year, so a little pumpkin (and his itty bitty companion) are are going to have to count this year.
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