2 acre farm: Giving "Leftovers" New Life

2 acre farm

The experiences, trials, and lives on a small farm in rural Illinois.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Giving "Leftovers" New Life

(Backpost for 08/1/10)
Last Friday's harvest yielded over 210lbs. of tomatoes, however once they were sorted only 144lbs. were of market quality (for harvest totals to the left we only account for items that go to market). So Saturday after the farmer's market we took the afternoon off, well sort-of, and turned the tomato seconds (scarred, split, and bruised) into salsa and tomatoes with peppers for chili.

As some of you might remember from one of Nathan's first post, More on the Why, one of our main goals is to produce at least 50% of our families annual food consumption, while also producing enough to sell at market to make a living off of. One of our biggest hurdles is how do we do it in such a small space which means to preserve just about anything we can.


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7 Comments:

Blogger Kristie Simmons said...

The tomatoes look great. Did you can any tomatoes to make homemade sauce (marinara & pizza) with? You will be able to enjoy the taste of great tomatoes all year long. YUM

August 9, 2010 at 6:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post and the tomatoes look good

August 12, 2010 at 10:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

how many pints and quarts did you all can ?

August 13, 2010 at 10:27 AM  
Blogger Aimee (2af) said...

To Mrs. Simmons:
For this first tomato canning we kept it simple, however about 2 weeks ago we did make 3 qts. of spaghetti sauce, which took a little over 20 lbs. of tomatoes and 3 hours of simmering...but very delish! I hadn't even thought about marinara or pizza sauce but will be adding it to our list! Thanks for the suggestion and comment.

To Anonymous:
This first big harvest of heirloom tomato seconds, which was a little over 60 lbs., provided us with 13 qts. of salsa, 6 pts. of chili sauce and then we froze the rest in one gallon bags(7). Thanks for your comment.

August 15, 2010 at 3:07 PM  
Blogger BecomingSelfSufficient said...

We just moved to our farm in April this year and we started our garden too late, so our dream of having lots of tomatoes kind of went down he drain, hopefully next year.

August 19, 2010 at 6:32 AM  
Anonymous Aby said...

Will you guys be back in Edwardsville tomorrow? We missed you last week! :)

Aby

August 27, 2010 at 2:42 PM  
Blogger Aimee (2af) said...

Hi Aby! Unfortunately we will not be at market. After harvesting this afternoon(which was a bit disheartening)Nathan and I decided, with the little we had, we couldn't justify making the trip. Our time will be better served in the gardens. We hope to be there next week though and have our fingers crossed for the fall crops. Thanks so much Aby!! By the way, how did you and Jay like the canned Shishito's?

August 27, 2010 at 9:59 PM  

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