Bamboo

Very nice and inspiring!

I want a smoker! lol did you make it yourself?

Silvia

Silvia,

Yes, home made. It has an attached wood fired grill also. The smoker itself can run on wood or propane but I mostly use the propane. This picture was just after it was finished but not yet acid washed.

Oh, I am SOOOO coming over! That looks just smashing... Now I just need to bring a bunch of mullet and some deer and hog to smoke, too! ;-)

Seriously those tomatoes look amazing!

Barbie

What do you do with them after that? Do they need refrigeration still?

Yes they still need refrigeration. We freeze them and then use them from there. Because you remove 90% of the water they freeze great.

Hi Bamboo Rabbit,

I am in AWE of those tomatoes! Wow. Absolutely beautiful and I bet really tasty too.

Which variety of roma are they? I'd like to try some romas next season and would love to have even a moderate version of your success!

Elizabeth

Bamboo,

Can you give a quick how to on the construction of your smoker? Maybe just open it up and take some closeup pics, I can figure it out from there.

Thanks

Elizabeth,

They are Burpee's Viva Italia. I have had good luck with all the roma types though. The Italia has already produced well over 100 pounds of fruit and will produce at least a couple hundred more pounds I would guess.

The plants grew well. I don't use any chemical fertilizer on the garden at all and no pesticides, as a consequence I do have a few stink bug bites on some fruit. I till in rabbit manure at the beginning of the season, plant the toms ,cage them and add a auto water system which waters them for an hour twice a week. As you can tell from the pictures I don't weed much (Just ask Lou) :) The toms shade out the grass in time. The toms in the pic are over 8 feet tall and you can see the tunnel I have to go through to pick.

Joe,

The smoker is just brick with a wooden frame around the doors. There is an upper door where the smoker is and a lower door where the two burner propane stove is. With two doors you can open the lower door to add more wood chips without letting out all the heat. There is 1/4 rebar placed in to the courses of bricks as you build and the racks sit on them. This smoker can hold 5 racks. It is pretty big at some 3 feet across and about 5 feet tall. There is a vent at the top you can slide open as much as you want to control ventilation. As you can see from the very black interior it gets some use lol. That bottom wire rack you can see in the picture just above the burners holds stones, I removed them for the picture but they catch the drippings and diffuse the rising heat. The wood chips just go in a cast iron pan and I put a lid on that so it just smolders.

Those are some healthy looking Roma plants Rabbit.I don't use any synthetic fertilzers or insecticides in my garden & have noticed the last couple of seasons,that the Romas seem to get hit by the bugs much harder than my other tomatoe varieties.Have you noticed any similar issues?I am actually thinking of just planting a couple of Romas in future,to attract the pests away from the other tomatoe plants.

Westhamutd,

I only grow 4 toms....Everglades, Roma, Huang and the Monohakmas hat. For me of those types the Roma's are always the strongest and decline last.....but they do seem more attractive to the insects like stink bugs and leaf footed bugs. The Huang always craps out first for me but like the flavor and the color in dishes. I do have ducks and they help greatly to keep the insect population down.

Thanks,I was wondering if it was just my Romas that seemed so tasty to the bugs.I'm not sure I could trust my ducks in the veggie garden.I think they've hung out with the geese too long,as they seem to do a lot of grazing now & I think they would spend more time munching on the veggies,than on bug patrol.Do you let yours free range in the veggie garden?

Oooh, I am SO showing my hubby those pics of your smoker! He wanted to build an open pit, but we don't have a good location for it because we have so many trees. That looks like it would work a lot better for us. Plus then we could smoke our own hams and sausage when the pigs go to freezer camp!

BTW, do you have any suggestions on what to do with the cherry toms? My garden is overflowing with them! I've given several loads away, and am using as many as I can fresh, but they just keep producing!

Audra,

If Nathan wants an up close look you two are always welcome to stop over.

The cherry toms make great sun dried tomatoes. Just cut in half and put on cookie sheets on the dash of your car for a day or two..let that hot sun do the work. I know it sounds odd but works very very well.

Thanks! I will show him the pics tonight and see what he thinks. I know he wants to come over for another rabbit processing session before he tries it here too. Over maybe have you over to pull up a lawn chair and supervise! :) I emailed you a rabbit update just a little while ago.

I'll try that with the cherry toms. I have 2 baskets full on my counter right now that I've been wondering what to do with. I thought about canning them, but I thought it would be too much skin compared to the meat. Besides, my canning cabinet is full right now, lol.

Westhamutd,

How many and what kind of ducks do you have? Geese may be the next thing, have been keeping my eyes open for a pair.

I do let the ducks (muscovies)free range the fenced part of the yard which is about 2 acres. They are out there from 8am till almost dark when they put themselves to bed and are locked in their 10'X 15" duck house to keep them safe from the nightime prowlers. They are quite good in the garden. Have a duck with 6 week old ducklings and they are in there almost all day. I do fence off areas from them when things are just coming up or if it is something they would eat. They do eat any low hanging blueberries or fruit they can reach but most of the fruit is too high for them. I have noticed a pretty drastic reduction in bug numbers since the ducks arrived. I feed them only in the late afternoon so they are hungry and will forage all day. Right now I have 5 adult Muscovy ducks and a drake and 8 ducklings with two more ducks sitting on eggs and 19 eggs in the incubator from a nest they abandoned which should hatch next Sunday.

Audra,

Saw it and just answered you:) You two here or me there either works.

Thanks Bamboo,

Looks like a nice setup and not too difficult to put together. I could put a lot of mullet fillets in that smoker!!

Bamboo,I have just a handful of ducks.A khaki campbell,rhouen & a pair of cayugas.I had two nests that got raided,but I have since found & re-located the culprit.I have a pair of Embden geese & love them.They pretty much feed themselves & are great lookouts for hawks/eagles-they warn the ducks.The female goose was sitting on a large clutch,but got her nest raided also.I'm hoping she will lay again,but think it will probably be next spring.Are you using the muscies for meat/egg production or both?Best of luck with the upcoming hatch,Darcy.

Darcy,

The ducks will be for meat eventually when the numbers build up. I make the ducks nest in their pen just to avoid the raiders. Lou keeps me well supplied in chicken eggs and my quail will be producing eggs in just a couple weeks.

Very nice BR! I love the smoker, wish I though I could get away with building one but I think my neighbors would string me up :-( Guess I could buy a portable but I'm so close to the salt I'd have to keep it in the garage, and there's no room in there now with Cathy's car in there....I've got to figure this out, I'd love to do what you're doing with some of my surplus tomatoes.

I love the Romas too, they were hardy but like you my experience was that here they sure have been a bug-magnet.

Tom

Bamboo,my next project is a chicken tractor,as my ducks don't lay year round(even though khaki campbells are capable of outlaying some chicken breeds),I think it is because they are totally free range & so have become seasonal layers.Also my girls are super sneaky at choosing a nest site.
I saw your post about using the cherry toms for making sundried.It had never occurred to me to do that,so today I placed a tray of cherry tom halves in the greenhouse & closed the door/vents.They were almost done by sundown,but I will give them another half day tommorrow.Thanks for giving me a great idea for use of the G/H,when it would otherwise be sitting empty-I might try dehydrating some other veggies in there also.Can I just pop the sundried toms in a ziploc bag & store them in the pantry?Just want to be certain,if I make several batches-drying is new to me.Thanks again,Darcy.

I got a pair of Sebastapol geese this spring. They are friendly and have curly white feathers and blue eyes. I might get some colored ones this spring which are quite rare but the breeder I got them from is going to have lavender, buff, and blue available this fall. Mine are still too young to lay eggs yet.
We also have Muscovy ducks which have been really good for lean meat and make good sausage.

I got a pair of Sebastapol geese this spring. They are friendly and have curly white feathers and blue eyes. I might get some colored ones this spring which are quite rare but the breeder I got them from is going to have lavender, buff, and blue available this fall. Mine are still too young to lay eggs yet.
We also have Muscovy ducks which have been really good for lean meat and make good sausage.

Darcy,

What I do when I see the ducks are making nests outside where they are supposed to is not let them out of the duck house until very late morning. Doing that forces the duck to choose a spot in the duck house to lay and once she does that you just add the eggs from the hidden nest and she will continue to lay eggs where you want her to.

Far as the toms if you get them dry enough you can store them in the pantry but we don't like them dried to that point so we freeze of refrigerate them. If you go the pantry route just make sure it is airtight and watch them for the first week for signs of mold....if no mold you got them dry enough.

How are the geese at weeding? How noisy are they?