Ed, How did the Ripe red fruit preservation process proceed? Ours are just beginning to get ripe and it looks like a good crop unless the Raccoons get them. What type are you raising? Tom

Hi Tom,

Well, it went as planned. My wife can't do it all by herself, so I get to play "Canning King". :) We have about 25 plants, and they include early girls, rutgers (my favorite), and brandywines. We have the early ones, middle ones, and the later ones. There's going to be a *LOT* more. We've frozen some, canned some, and I'm going to try my hand at making salsa. Don't know if it will be good, but it will be hot, so how can I miss?

Ed

mmmm...homemade salsa! :)

I planted tomatoes this year, but not a one came up. I think it's because I waited too long. I usually do. Plus I don't start them indoors. I know all the things I do wrong, but I do them anyway

My wife likes the "Early Girl" and any type which gets moderately large. We dont have a large choice up here due to the unpredictable climate-- will probably frost within the next 3 weeks. We use most of ours in canned soups and sauce. This year salsa is on the "lets try it " list, if, as I said, the Raccoons dont arive first. Tom

So far this year, the racoons haven't been here. But we have a dog who likes to help himself to a good ripe tomatoe off the vine. He's kinda like me -- he'll eat anything. :)

Tom,

Since you get such an early frost, do you put anything over the plants at night? That should help a lot.

Ed

Hey Doug,

How cum we don't have a speling chekker? I think I might have spelt rakkoon wrong.

Ed

There actually IS one available, but it's a monthly fee (not an internal dictionary)

MONTHLY FEE!!???!!! Heck I can misspell stuff for FREE!!! We've tried covering the plants at night but again, the Raccoons. They, like the skunks, dont see enough people to become cautious--just curious and the coons are SMART. In the winter they will figure out how to pull in a minnow bucket,open it and eat the contents! Cute but a darn troublesome critter. Tom

Could be worse...you could have possums. At least raccoons are cute :masked:

Possom's? Whats not to love about an overgrown nocturnal marsupial rat with the temperment of an evil troll that eats garbage? Tom

Ah, I see you DO have them :)

Actually, they're not here---yet. The -30 and -40f winter temps keep 'em at bay. However they were "living the good life" in the area we moved here from. Tom

Here's a good one about Racoons. We went camping and to keep the raccoons out of the food we put it in our vehicle. During the middle of the night the noise got so loud and terrible we really wondered what we got ourselves into. Around 5am we finally got up the courage to go out and see. I told my husband "I think I just saw something flying through our car" OH Yeah!! He put all our food for the week in the car for safe cleaning but left the drivers window open. We had major interior damage. Little chocolate foot prints all over the car from the chocolate they got into. They wiped out our intire food supply. We learned our lesson. Next time we went camping it was our friends who go hit. I noticed what I thought was a bagel flying out of the tree in thier campsite. Of course everyone thought I had too many beers. When we went to investigate, the cooler lid pops up and there's a raccoon inside the cooler having a feast. Funnier than that, is that he is also passing food to a squirrel outside the cooler. I never saw anything like it. The other squirrels were in the tree finishing off a bag of bagels. They are about the most intelligent things I ever encountered. After witnessing that I say Tom, your tomatos are done for. :)
DJ

EXACTLY!!! Although with all the tomato's they will probably steal, I wonder where they get the garlic and pasta? They cant just eat that many plain tomato's.Tom

Knowing how smart those darn things are, I'd watch them. Maybe they will show you how to make a good pasta sauce. :D
DJ

You think that you have it rough with tomatoes. The squirrels here in Florida( who incidentally are very skinny-they have no need to store fat I've been told) will take sample bites out of the avocados to see if they are ready to eat and then just leave them. This of course ruins the avocado. They'll do the same with the bananas.Do you know that they actually sell squirrel food in Walmarts down here so that ( I suppose) the squirrels eat the squirrel stuff and leave the people food alone.I haven't tried that yet.Up in Long Island( NY) it used to be the deer and bunnies who were the problems.

I'll bet the critters start the "buffet" with a squirrel food appetizer then move on to sample the fruit tray!!! What a rough life. Please brier fox dont throw me in the briar patch!! Tom

I guess you kind of have to look at it like this. This world was their home first. Then if that's not bad enough, we just plow down thier homes and food supply and the next thing you know there's a nice parking lot. Pesty as they are, you just can't blame them. Providing food may work against you though. My Aunt encouraged the deer until the populations soared and then they were eating her gardens, apples from the trees and you name it. It's not easy to out fox them either. They've had many eons to perfect their foraging techniques. I guess that's the price we pay for stealing from them to begin with. :D
DJ