7 pints salsa
5 half-pints sun-dried tomatoes and one more sheet drying. The dehydrator we're using will not be able to keep up. Luckily, I inherited one a few years ago and will be using that one, as well soon, if our tomato crops keep producing like they are now.

Last year, I was busy doing stuff for the sesquicentennial at the school where I work. Of course, that meant that the farm suffered immeasurably since I was not around and not processing what we had grown and not tending to the growth in the field. There were times when I had to throw out many of the tomatoes because they were rotting on the counter. But not this year.

Mike asked me to count the tomato plants we have this year and I laughed. This year, I cut all the bottom leaves off so the plants would grow tall. By the time they did, we had not yet put the cages on them (which would have been a bust, I think, considering how big the plants are and how much fruit is on them. The small cages that I used for a few of them are just bent over with the weight of the fruit this year). So the sprawling plants, ladened with goodness, take over the garden, produce so much that I'm running to keep up with it. I think he wants to quantify what others know as a tomato plant, but it's hard to do when the tomato plants are producing probably twice or three times what someone else's plants would do.

I will probably do a few more batches of salsa then switch to spaghetti sauce. These are things we use a ton of during the year, although we haven't had spaghetti in a long time. I think it's too common a food for Mike. :) Or maybe he had too much of it as a kid. I know I did. But the same sauce we can use for his homemade pizzas and that's worth it. He's such a good cook and what I offer up to the whole cooking business is my uncanny ability to can ably. Say that ten times fast.

I also provide many of the herbs we use, both dried and fresh. And, of course, I planted the garden with plants I grew from seed while Mike did the peripheral stuff, like build huge compost piles for me and do the tractor work to prep the fields. It all works and we work very well together.

Now, if we could only get some raw milk for cheesemaking.