In August there is an unintentional decision made that affects the garden. The decision to harvest and preserve or weed and have a clean garden. Of course picking the tomatoes, okra, peppers, and beans is why I planted the garden in the first place. Thankfully we had wonderful rains every week which kept the plants watered and the weeds sprouting! The frost will come and that will be the downfall of those weeds, literally!
But jars of produce keep filling my cellar and will be there to savor all winter long. There is such a satisfaction seeing the end result of jars lined up in rows, after many days of canning in a hot, humid kitchen is but a faint memory.
Preserving lends itself to doing it with others. My daughter, Celeste, has had an abundance of tomatoes in her garden. Nice red paste tomatoes. Over a half bushel a week. Having extra produce is like an addiction to preserve. So we cut those tomatoes, put them through a sieve, cooked the red sauce and made tomato soup. Canning the soup together speeds up the process. While I ladle it into the jars, she wipes the rims, adds the citric acid, and puts on the lids and tops.
A verse that I have recently received encouragement from is this. In all labor there is profit, But mere talk leads only to poverty. Proverbs 14:23.
Seven quart jars or nine pint jars fit in my canner. It doesn’t seem like very much for all the time and labor spent in preparing the tomatoes for preserving. But when I reach for a jar of tomato soup on a cold winter day, it warms my heart in a way that Campbell’s can’t even compare!
What is your labor that seems so insignificant but it is yielding great results in warming someone’s heart? You might be working at a project that will be beautiful to observe or use? If you are doing more than talking about doing it, there is profit, my friend!
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Yummy…I love Tomato Soup!