A new journey into homesteading "pic heavy"

[Chic Rustler]

Even after the sheep grazed it HARD, there was still lots of humus for the soil.

A hard grazed pasture still had a lot of humus to improve the soil. If you were able to plant clovers and let them grow to full height, then mow it down, you would have a LOT of mulch and humus for your soil.

Ley your clover grow to this, then mow and mulch it.

The clover will fix nitrogen in it's roots and improve the soil.

Love that pic!

 

[Chic Rustler]

Been working all day on this. 7 gallon size freezer bags of tomatoes condensed down to 3/4 of a pot of spaghetti sauce. Maybe enough for 3 or 4 quarts. So 3 or 4 meals for the family.

We eat pasta every week. To make that much sauce i would need around a thousand tomato plants and a week to cook it all. So we probably wont be "pasta self sufficient" any time i the forseeable future.


That being said, it all came from the garden. The tomatoes, herbs and garlic. I will enjoy these three meals!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That’s fantastic! Crazy how many tomatoes it takes- but the good stuff is that every part of it came as a reward from your hard work

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I can smell it from here!!!

 

[Mini Horses]

Love fresh tomatoes and fresh sauce. Me -- I grow the paste type for a little more substance but, the regular types for slicers & chopped/canned. I "may" get sauce sufficient, but only ONE here Doesn't take so much. Yeah, I remember when there were kids at home, friends of kids, etc. HUGE meals were needed. $$$ My gardens helped then, too. Even "some" help is better than none Keep at it. You're doing great.

 

[Chic Rustler]

Love fresh tomatoes and fresh sauce. Me -- I grow the paste type for a little more substance but, the regular types for slicers & chopped/canned. I "may" get sauce sufficient, but only ONE here Doesn't take so much. Yeah, I remember when there were kids at home, friends of kids, etc. HUGE meals were needed. $$$ My gardens helped then, too. Even "some" help is better than none Keep at it. You're doing great.

Aint that the truth! Anything from the garden helps!

 

[sumi]

That sauce looks delicious!

 

[Chic Rustler]

Six 1 1/2 pint jars.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I love those jars. I'll often make a choice of what to buy in the store, based on what kind of jar it's in!

 

[wyoDreamer]

I am not a big fan of raw tomatoes - so I grow mostly paste tomatoes. I found that dehydrated tomatoes will help thicken the sauce when you are cooking down fresh tomatoes, so it takes less time. I had some leftover dehydrated tomatoes that I wanted to use up, so I added them to my pot of slicing tomatoes I was trying to make sauce out of. I hope to have my solar dehydrator built by tomato season so I can dehydrate a lot of stuff.

Last fall, I sliced and dehydrated all the overripe and otherwise "not good enough tomatoes" to give to the chickens this winter. They are really loving them, especially when I rehydrate the tomatoes in warm water on the negative temp mornings. They slurp them down in no time. They love the treats and the yolks stay dark and delicious.