July 26, 2026
On July 5, I was in the garden watering the plants. I saw this little bird hiding behind the tomato plants. I also noticed another bird on one of the T-Post.
The tomato cages didn’t hold up. I now realize that if I want to grow tomatoes in cages, I’ll need to prune them. Letting them grow wild causes problems, such as the tomato cage falling over and making the tomatoes hard to reach. That’s what gardening is about: trying new things and seeing what happens.
Over my neighbor’s field, I noticed a flock of egrets flying past. Most of the flock landed in the creek on his property. Four decided to rest in his hickory tree. At first, I thought there were only three birds. As they took off, I saw the fourth egret.
I picked so many tomatoes that I needed to do something with them.
We didn’t get much of a sunset. It was too overcast.
On July 6, it was time for homemade tomato sauce! Almost everything in the sauce came from my garden: garlic, basil, oregano, thyme, peppers, and onion. The only things that I put in the sauce that didn’t come from my garden were salt and black pepper. I put the tomatoes, garlic, onions, basil, oregano, thyme, and peppers into the food processor. I liquefied the tomatoes since I wanted the skins to disappear and someone (me) didn’t want to peel all those tomatoes.
I made six quarts of tomato sauce. One quart was placed in the fridge, and the rest were placed in the freezer.
Bruce was enjoying his speed mowing.
We had a brief rainstorm, then the sky cleared. Bruce was happy he had finished mowing before the rain came. We had a lovely double rainbow that became a single rainbow.
The sunset was pretty.
As twilight settled over Blackberry Homestead, it was hornworm hunting time! Bruce made it to the tomatoes first. Using the black light flashlight, Bruce started shining the black light onto the tomato plants. As he moved around, he noticed a couple of critters. He called me over, and I got to see one of them. The picture didn’t turn out that well, since it was twilight.
Yep, that is a baby skunk.
We waited until the skunks were out of sight before resuming our war on tomato hornworms.
That made for an interesting end to the day
Blackberry Homestead 
Skunk! We haven’t seen one in this neighborhood for weeks.
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We have several around. This was just the first time we got so close to some. I am just glad they didn’t see us as a real threat, and they bravely run away.
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Your garden has been very successful!
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It has been. Now, if only I can recover it.
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Feels so good to stock the freezer.
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It does!
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What a great harvest and I like that you put tomato sauce in baggies. Clever for storing in the freezer!
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I lay the bags flat to freeze, then put them upright in another drawer. It makes it easier to store and take out of the freezer.
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👍🏻 Yup, I do the same thing.
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🙂
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Your homemade tomato sauce looks delicious! What a treat to have in the freezer in the fall or winter. Our tomato plants also have gone out of control with branches sprawling all over. I do not remember this problem from other years.
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Have you had a lot of rain? The plants grow very well with lots of rain. The tomatoes will split with lots of rain.
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We did have a couple of heavy rains, and lately some very warm weather. And we are watering. I guess ideal conditions for the produce.
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It sounds like happy tomato conditions. 🍅
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Liquify the tomatoes? How do you do that?
We’ve had some skunk “friends” show up in our neighborhood too. Ew.
HAre you feeling more caught up on yard upkeep?)
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I put the tomatoes in a food processor and pulsed them at first, then just turned the processor to on until the tomatoes were liquid. There might be some pieces of the Roma tomatoes left, but I don’t mind. The seeds are left as well. I am thinking about getting a vegetable strainer to help with processing tomatoes
We normally see skunks in the front by the creek or in the back field.
Noooo! There is so much weeding to do. I need to clean up the tomatoes. With all the rain, so many split. The first mowing only took the grass down to 4 inches, but some of it popped up. There is grass clumps everywhere. Bruce has to mow again to get the grass under control.
It still feels good to be home! 😁
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