Putting Up Our Harvest

I’ve been busy drying tomatoes and putting up our blackberries and blueberries. Before I write more about that, Kristina had asked what the tomatoes look like when they are dried. I’ve never looked at them side by side, and thought it would be neat to see how they compare.

Here is our favorite to dry – Juliet. I like them because they are large enough that we get a good bit of tomato, but they’re not so large they take a long time to dry. Also, the Juliet is an ok fresh eating tomato, but a great one once it’s dried. I cut Juliet up into quarters.

Juliet and Juliet Dried

Then we love Sungolds to just pop in our mouth, but they are so good dried. They are small so I only cut them in half.

Sungold and Sungold Dried

I just realized that I should have put a ruler on the dried ones. Too late now. They are vacuum sealed and put away for winter! We dry others but this gives you an idea of how their size changes in the dehydrator.

Now to the blackberries. I know I’ve been posting quite a bit about them, but they are just everywhere! I’m amazed at the Apache. They are huge!

Apache Blackberry

So I’ve been making juice to freeze for more blackberry jello.

Blackberry Juice

And made another batch of Blackberry Syrup. They will stay in the basement fridge for three weeks, and then I’ll put lids on them.

Blackberry Syrup

Besides giving some blackberries away, I freeze them. Just rinse them off, lay them out on a metal pan, and put them in the freezer.

Blackberries just out of the freezer

Then bag them up for their final destination until I need them.

Two-cup bags of blackberries

Blueberries are slowly coming to an end. I’m only harvesting them every other day now. There will be more tomatoes to dry and freeze and then peppers. We’ll pick up some peaches at a local orchard soon and then apples in the fall.

It’s a busy time here at Happy Acres.