No I am not complaining!  Seriously I am so grateful of all this fruit, I just sit here alone, well with my little guy wondering how …

on earth am I going to get this all preserved before winter, or worse rot?

But he just laughs at all my fretting and reminds me, these are good problems to have!

So we begin, and luckily I have a helper that doesn’t bore of washing…until of course he does…

But quickly finds other things to entertain him while I chop away.

One by one I get to marvel at each perfectly imperfect lucious fruit, saving the seeds of the finest favorites along the way.

And slowly 30lbs turns onto one pot, which I mix with more home-grown goodness…

10lbs of the most pungent onions I have ever smelled, crying all the way.  Along with home-grown garlic, oregano, rosemary, basil and thyme….this might be my first 100% home-grown marinara!! Mama mia it was good!

Then I moved to something a bit more decadent, and tomato marmalade recipe that kind of blew my mind last year…I know what you are thinking, not exactly your thing, right..well a gifted jar of this stuff sat on my shelf for almost 8months before I broke it open out of desperation when a beloved guest was over and all I had to offer was toast…It has us cooing and pining for the recipe ever since… So thanks to Elsa and her mom here it is, but a warning there are way more store-bought and sweeting ingredients in this one than my puritan marinara but truthfully, well worth it!!

Thank goodness for six burners, I had them all working at once at some point during this frenzy along with every pot in the house…and that usually only happens about twice a year on big holidays!

And so lots of work and days later I now have just over a dozen pints of love….and 30 more lbs of fruit calling my name!

And just for the record I am feeling super lucky I have food to eat and to feed my people with.  May all beings be gifted a full belly tonight and may my growing efforts go to feed the many who simply are not nourished as they should be.