Dorothy,

It sounds like you've put up plenty.

I normally don't put up as many tomatoes as I have this year because normally I just gave away most of the extra tomatoes. I did plant a lot of paste types just for drying and canning, and then the slicers performed so well that I even canned a bunch of them. I'll plant far fewer tomato plants next year because I shouldn't need to can very many.

I think I may have another batch or two of salsa in me still, but then I'm through canning tomatoes. This week I made Annie's Salsa With A Peach Twist since friends gave us peaches. I was all set to make Habanero Gold this week, but had a chance of heart, and used those habs to make some really hot Annie's Salsa. I think it is likely I'll start making pepper jelly sometime in the next couple of days, just whenever there's enough orange habs to pick again.

About the only veggies I have left that I want to can are some more cukes for pickles and some peppers. I'm made sweet pickle relish, bread and butter pickles and hot, spicy pickles, but haven't made dill pickles yet. I also have the pepper and pepper jelly canning left to do, but my harvesting and canning are slowly down a lot now. I'm still drying tomatoes almost daily.

I've been blanching and freezing okra but have to save most of the still-available freezer space for mid-season and late-season corn, assuming we get enough ears to put up some of them. I should be outside picking the mid-season corn right now before it gets too hot.

I'm usually about done with canning, other than Habanero stuff, by the end of July. Really, once it is this hot, it takes all the energy I have to just go out to the garden long enough to harvest. I had a snake encounter in the garden a couple of days ago, and have been avoiding the garden ever since. I picked the cukes yesterday so I oculd make pickles, but I stood outside the garden fence in grass that is mowed so short a snake could not be higing in it, and reached through the fence to pick cukes.

With the arrival of mid-summer, the garden is evolving and most of what we harvest in the next few weeks is better eaten fresh--including muskmelons and watermelons, so the canning season just sort of tapers off on its own anyway.

I think my idea of fun in the heat might be to stay inside in the AC.

Dawn