We Can't believe the size of these tomatoes! It's Harvest day on the homestead.

hey everybody Welcome Back To Living Traditions Homestead well we are out in the greenhouse today can you guys believe how big the plants are out here in the greenhouse you know we have some harvesting to do today and we thought we'd bring you guys along I think in my opinion just looking around this is going to be a pretty epic Harvest what we're preparing for with this big Harvest is that I have a bunch of salsa to make this year we're completely out of salsa right we've been out for a while so this is the year that I'm growing tomatoes and a lot of peppers so that I can restock our pantry with salsa probably for the next couple of years right that's typically the way we try to plan things is so that like one like each year Sarah can concentrate on like one thing especially like with tomatoes like this year's a salsa year next year will be a pasta sauce here again you know and it'll be like that so we can grow the complementary plants that go along with those things in the right quantities each year right so I have a big weekend planned and several days in a row probably for salsa once I have all of that canned then I can concentrate on well what can I just supplement element the pantry with what other things could I make we have a ton of tomatoes a ton of peppers ready to be harvested but I do want to let you know that about a week ago we did a giant tomato Harvest Right the first harvest of tomatoes in the greenhouse for the year they were ready to be picked even though I wasn't ready to make salsa and actually it was right before I left on a road trip to go visit my parents so we put all of those in the refrigerator some of them in the freezer so I'll be able to take those out too but today you'll be surprised I think how many more in just one week are ready to be harvested right yeah I mean this is it's unbelievable how the tomatoes are doing here in the greenhouse so first let's take a little walk around we'll kind of look at everything and then we need to get we need to get busy because it's going to be quite a harvest all right we're going to go real quickly through the greenhouse I don't want to take up a lot of your time because I know Sarah has done several videos recently where you guys have been out here in the greenhouse weather but there's some things I want to concentrate on uh first of all our basil here at the front look Sarah harvested a ton of Basil about two weeks ago and you know it's been super hot out and basil loves the heat so look how great that is doing now we're not going to be harvesting any of that today because we just don't need it right now so we're just going to let that keep growing I did want to stop at the Tom berries and show you these these are one of the tomatoes that I was growing this year as an experiment that were supposed to be the world's smallest tomato I don't think they ended up being a true variety I bought seeds on Etsy and I just think whoever sold me the seeds probably not on purpose but whatever they sent me wasn't so what it was supposed to be so I've left the plants here I showed you guys early on that they were getting some disease I really think it was a magnesium deficiency so I did treat the plants for that the new leaves up top are looking fine and you know even though these aren't the tomatoes that we thought they were going to end up being I mean most of them are more I don't know like this size here um they're actually when they get really ripe they're actually a pretty tasty little tomato so I don't know what they are but I've left them in here because they are a good quick snack when I'm out here all right we're gonna go even faster through the rest I promise so we've got all of our uh Juliet's and large red cherries here there are a ton of these to harvest today which is good because my ball of cherry tomatoes in the house is just about empty and I need more in there so we're gonna be harvesting all of those today we've got our paste tomatoes here looks like we lost a branch we had a really big storm come through a couple nights ago lots of people in our area without power we lost quite a few big branches off of trees and it came up so fast that we didn't get out here right away to shut the sides of the greenhouse luckily I was able to get out here after just a couple minutes but it did do some damage here in the greenhouse so luckily most things are doing just fine but we did lose some branches on some of the tomatoes like this and we did lose a few branches on Peppers but all in all not enough to make a big difference so these are all the paste tomatoes we'll be picking all of those today and then we're into our jet Stars our slicing tomatoes you guys the jet Stars here in the greenhouse are unbelievable we've never had Jetstar tomatoes grow the way they're growing here in the greenhouse look at this I'm gonna pick this one because it's going to need to be picked today anyway look at that tomato that's got to be a pound and a half two pound tomato I mean that's unbelievable we've just never had our tomatoes do this well and I really think it's because we're here in the greenhouse where we can control things a lot more okay we're back here this is what I wanted to show you guys the second of my experiments which was the giant Domingos I'll be honest guys they're not doing the greatest um the plants themselves are really struggling the tomatoes are all splitting open um but we do have some pretty amazing sized tomatoes on there look at this one here I might end up picking that one today but look at that I mean they're crazy Tomatoes All right but so we'll just see what they do I didn't go into that experiment thinking those were going to be great eaters I just wanted to do it because I wanted to see a humongous tomato all right we've got a few random Peppers back here that didn't sell at the farmer's market zucchini which we're actually going to do a final Harvest of today and then we're going to be pulling those because they're just the plants are getting old now we can do a second planting of them soon uh so we're just gonna get rid of those today we're starting to get a lot of squash bugs uh okra which is doing pretty good uh the Japanese beetles are starting to get on them looks like I've missed some I've been out here for a few days but the okra are doing pretty well this is a dwarf variety that we're trying this year in the tubs our cucumbers which are also kind of getting to the end of their life we do have more cucumbers out in the garden but these are kind of getting to the end of their life green beans are pretty much done for the year and then from here on out are all the different peppers that we're growing this year spicy peppers sweet peppers bell peppers you name it we pretty much have them growing in here so that's kind of the overview of the greenhouse today we're going to be picking pretty much a little bit of everything but we're going to be concentrating on the tomatoes and peppers because that's what Sarah's going to need the most of for her Salsas Now Kevin and I are going to work at the same time we're kind of dividing and conquering we're going to start with the cherry tomatoes now in the past we have shown you just how tall these tomato plants are getting a lot of them are all the way up past the purlins and we got a question recently either email or on one of our um one of our videos about you know if if the plants are growing as tall as the top of the greenhouse do the tomatoes continue to grow up that high and if so do we need a ladder to harvest and the answer to all those questions is yes they do continue to grow up high and by the time they get up there we need a ladder to harvest them and that's actually what we're going to be doing today I'm going to be harvesting the tomatoes that are low enough to the ground that I can reach them without a ladder and at the same time Kevin will be using the ladder to harvest what is too high so we're just going to work together and get all this harvesting done [Music] thank you [Music] all right here's what we got for cherry tomatoes it's probably a day's worth for me snacking on don't you think I'd say I can handle these now I did want to say one quick thing and sometimes I can't believe I need to address some of these things but we're going to we get these boxes from Friends people at church that go to like uh produce auctions we have sometimes we get them from one of our local grocery stores but we've had people online accuse us of not extra growing our own stuff because when they see us we have them in boxes and they're like well you just bought that did I see those boxes at the store we just saved these boxes or recycle them from other places so that we can use them because they're super handy to have so you just saw us picking and now you see the tomatoes in the Box I promise you we actually grew these and I'm actually gonna eat them too all right we need to move on to other things we're moving on to the next section of tomatoes that has paste tomatoes now paste tomatoes are a tomato that aren't as juicy like a slicing tomato a slicing tomato you would grow to put on sandwiches to make tomato juice or diced tomatoes whole tomatoes that you would can but um but paste tomatoes you would use for pasta sauce ketchup I am going to use some to make salsa so it's not so watery when I make the salsa we are using two different varieties of paste tomatoes this year one is called salvaterra select which has been my favorite and the other one is Amish paste and I say it that way because we have been resisting trying Amish paste again because one year about five years ago we tried it and it was a huge disaster we thought it was a variety issue but you guys I'm so glad that you all have convinced us to try them again because they're humongous and they're doing fantastic fantastically look oh that one came off because it's so ripe look at the size of this Amish paste tomato now I do have some salvatero select that are almost the size but this is a fantastic size for paste tomato most paste tomatoes are small like the Roma ones that you get at the grocery store but these are so amazing and they're very productive we've got lots of them growing so we're really excited to look at even here these green ones that are up at the top here oh my gosh they're just they're huge and they're fantastic so we're so excited to be growing those let me show you while I'm out here some of the salvaterra select so you can get an idea these are also a really good size tomato here for paste tomato and that's why I've always grown the salvaterra select but these Amish paste man they're even bigger okay so let's get harvesting these guys they've been very productive we have a lot to harvest we're going to put them in our baskets and our boxes so that we can take them in the house to make salsa this weekend now I do want to share that when I pick tomatoes I try to take the stem off of every single one of them so that it won't poke and damage a neighboring tomato when I put it in the box or the basket and I also store them like on their shoulders so upside down so that there's a less less likelihood that they can get bruised so that's what I do take the stem off and store it on its shoulders [Music] foreign [Music] thank you while I harvested that biggest of the giant Domingos look at that you guys now it does have some cracking and it's not a real pretty tomato but I don't know I I'll have to weigh it when we take it in the house but that is a Big Tomato we're all finished with the tomatoes you guys look at all the tomatoes we and we still have probably about this many that we harvested last week at least I think there might be more that I harvested last week yeah so it's gonna be quite a salsa making weekend but we've decided that we're gonna wait and pick the other half of the greenhouse early tomorrow morning because you guys it is about 98 degrees out right now and it is so humid we're just about dying in the greenhouse yeah it's so humid right now that like the air is thick right we're just pouring in sweat I think that tomorrow morning might be a little bit more enjoyable harvesting the rest of the greenhouse right so we're done for the evening tonight we'll see you guys first thing in the morning when we're ready to start picking all the peppers zucchini and cucumbers well good morning you guys we're back out in the greenhouse it is the next morning uh not as early as we had expected because believe it or not we got rain this morning when we looked at the forecast last night there was zero percent chance of rain today we got up this morning and by 6 a.m it was starting to rain it's almost 10 o'clock now and it's still raining but it does look like it's going to be moving out shortly it's already uh slowed down a lot so we figured we'd get out here and start harvesting and normally harvesting out here in the greenhouse in the rain is really nice it's actually a beautiful morning but because of the sound and we're recording we wanted to wait until it wasn't it raining as hard so that you guys can enjoy this experience with us so we have quite a few things to harvest this morning we are going to be starting off harvesting sweet peppers we have several varieties that are ready to be harvested so we're gonna get started on those and when we're done we'll show you everything we got [Music] thank you [Music] well here's what we ended up with for the sweet peppers here in this box these are Sarah's absolute favorite red roasting Peppers She's told you guys about these a lot called edgevarskis look at those gorgeous peppers I mean look at the size of these you guys just amazing now I we we're picking them not 100 red so that I have them in the house when I need them for salsa I'm also going to let some of them go completely red so that I can roast them and use them in the recipes that I like to use over the the winter whether I freeze them or freeze dry them I just want to have these in the house and there are a million more on the plants that just haven't turned red yet these are just what were red today right and the other things that we have these smaller red peppers these are called lipstick Peppers we actually thought these were going to be much smaller we thought they'd be the size of a jalapeno and that we could use them as a snacking pepper they're much larger but you guys they're so prolific this whole basket and they're good I have eaten quite a few of them this whole basket is just filled to the bottom with them we didn't have many bell peppers to pick this time because we've been really harvesting these over the last month or so as I need them for my cooking in the kitchen and then this entire half on this side are the nottopenos and we've talked with you guys about these for years they're a jalapeno that tastes exactly like a jalapeno except they're not spicy at all right no spice at all so and those we get these seeds we get every year from Baker Creek we can't save seed from them as well because they're an heirloom as well as ajvarsky right so they're all these are all great sweet peppers we really enjoy raising them all right now we're going to move on to all of the spicy peppers we've got three varieties of spicy peppers that we're growing this year jalapenos uh Sugar Rush Peach and a Peruvian Ahi arnotcho or nacho that were those those are not a pepper you can just eat those are peppers that we're gonna be using to spice up the salsa all right we're gonna get on to picking those we'll show you when we're done [Music] thank you [Music] thank you all right we're all done picking the spicy peppers we've got a pretty good basket full here here's what we ended up with uh jalapenos some nice big jalapenos these are the Craig's Grande jalapenos from Baker Creek we really like those uh we also have these which are the Sugar Rush Peach this is the first year we're growing these but you guys these are so prolific and then just two of these little Peruvian spicy peppers there's a ton of them on the plants but only two that were turning red so far those were seeds that the original owner of this property his grandson gave us those seeds um his wife is from Peru and he brought those seeds back from Peru and asked if we would try growing them here in the greenhouse and they are doing fantastic now to give you guys a little reference on some of these Peppers so jalapeno pepper is about 2500 to 8 000 uh what they call Scoville heat units so about eight thousand at the spiciest these Sugar Rush Peach and the ahis the Sugar Rush Peach are range from 50 000 to a hundred thousand uh so about 25 times hotter than a jalapeno and these ahis these range about thirty to fifty thousand so you know anywhere from 10 to 15 times hotter than a jalapeno so these will really spice up the salsas that Sarah's making I'm excited because I love spicy salsa moving on in this row we have the green beans here they're actually pretty much done we are letting the beans that are on there just stay on there so we can collect them for seed we do have time after they're done to take them out and replant if we want to but we haven't made that decision yet you know green beans even in the garden are one of the first things to produce so they're one of the first things to end also so really this is just natural life cycle for them and just a reminder for you guys we were able to plant this greenhouse about six weeks earlier than we would plant anything outside in the ground so the life cycle of these plants is going to get to the end before we feel like it's fall before the things out in the garden are going to get to the end of their life cycle now so we're staying we're really skipping the green beans today we are going to harvest some cucumbers the cucumber plants are kind of at the end of their life too but we are not ready to give up on them because they still are producing small cucumbers so they might look a little sad but we're going to harvest the cucumbers and we have a lot of them to rely on also out in the garden but today we're just picking what's here foreign thing with these big cucumbers they're way too seedy to really be a good cucumber to eat but my Quail absolutely love these big cucumbers I cut them in half and I lay them in their cages and they just love those seeds well it didn't look like there were many cucumbers on the plants at all but we ended up with a full basket of cucumber so hey I'll never complain about that well on to the okra this dwarf okra variety we've kind of forgotten about the okra for the last week or so and so some of these are too big those that are too big to eat we'll give them to the pigs and those that are not we'll eat now see this one you can't bend at all those are those need to go to the pigs but those that are bendy we will keep for eating that might be a little long but it's still bendy we can eat that [Applause] foreign were just too big to eat they'll go to the pigs we did have about a handful of them that are worth eating and honestly they're not even going to make it into the house Kevin just loves to eat raw okra right off the plant so I'm sure he's just gonna eat these before we get into the house so next up are the zucchini like we told you at the beginning of the video we've got some squash bugs on these zucchini so we're going to do a final Harvest on them and then another day we're just going to pull all the plants decide whether or not we're going to replant we do have time yet to do at least one more planting of zucchini before fall yeah there are suddenly a million squash bugs oh this one's not good either foreign well it wasn't a huge quantity of zucchini but the ones that were ready to harvest are gigantic so I have four in my basket today a couple of them were too hard and old so they'll go to the pigs now I just want to let you know that you know I only have about five plants here five buckets and even though it's the end of their season they're kind of done and overrun with bugs I probably harvested 40 zucchini from these plants already this summer early summer late spring so I'm very pleased with that we've eaten a lot of them I did a video on how to preserve them I had about 14 or 15 of them that were backing up I needed to preserve so I'm very pleased with the Harvest from the zucchini I do want to do another round of them so as soon as we can get these plants pulled out of here we're going to plant seed again for another round while here is the final Harvest can you guys believe how amazing all of this looks I don't know if I'm more impressed this year with how the tomatoes are doing in the greenhouse or the peppers because both of them are just doing awesome this is such a fantastic Harvest and to really think that I've all I've already done a tomato Harvest at least this big if not Nutley right this greenhouse is really working out well for us it is by far out produced anything that we have grown in there before this year because this year we really expanded last year we did we were just kind of testing out to see what would grow in the greenhouse this year we decided to do some serious growing and it has really paid off for us you know I remember when we got our very first Greenhouse from grower solution at our other Homestead thinking to myself you know that greenhouses are great for like plant starts in the spring and stuff but I don't think I'll ever really enjoy growing our vegetables and stuff inside of the greenhouse you guys I was completely wrong yeah if it were up to me these days we would only be growing in the greenhouse because it is just you're just able to control things so much more you can control your soil better you can control the amount of Wind by putting the sides up and down you can control the amount of moisture it's just you you just have a lot more control over how things go and I think I mean with the shade cloth up I think that's what's making the difference these last two years is this intense Sun that we've been getting outside the last couple of years is blocked out by that shade cloth in the greenhouse and it allows these vegetables to grow bigger without splitting without getting the sun damage and it just makes for a better crop so we are excited about what the future plantings in the greenhouse have in store for us every year we're going to try something new a little bit more kind of push the limits here and there it will be an exciting Adventure we do get a lot of questions about the greenhouse you guys if you want to learn more check out Grower Solutions website that's where you can look at all the different greenhouses that they offer you know all the way from a big one like this down to smaller ones if you just have a smaller backyard they have a ton of great stuff and if you look in our description we do have a coupon code for 10 off which can really add up on something like a greenhouse hey if you're enjoying our videos uh we sure hope that you'll hit that subscribe button before you leave don't forget as always the absolute best way that you can help us is just by sharing our videos so that other people may enjoy them as well and as always thank you so much for stopping by our Homestead take care and God bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 100,440

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing

Id: ozNnVx36I04

Length: 28min 54sec (1734 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 22 2023