First canning session of the summer today, tomatoes in a small batch of just four pint jars. These are the really ripe perfect ones that get blanched, cored, peeled, and cut in half or left whole. For 20+ years I've diced my tomatoes and canned them, but when I tried to talk about it on one of the Official Facebook Canning groups last year I got blocked. It seems they frown on dicing. Oh, well. Less work to do them whole, but less density of tomatoes also (which is, I think the issue they have with dice - but sauce and other things are even more dense.) I might end up with a case of tomatoes canned this year; others will be made into sauce and I'll freeze them. I use more sauce than anything, so I might as well make most of them that way.

The heat has truncated the garden production; some years I have an entire kitchen counter covered with huge tomatoes by now. We had a nice rain today, but more high heat in the forecast means fruit won't set (it has to be under 80^o overnight for most tomatoes to set fruit.) That said, I'm enjoying the garden again this year and have used a lot of the produce. Cooking, canning, and salads. If I can get my hands on some fresh dill I'll make refrigerator pickles. I should find a recipe for pesto (the pine nuts were $25 a pound at my bulk grocer, so a recipe with a different nut is called for.)

More cat sitting coming up in a week, and plant sitting for next door. We've talked about putting a gate through between our back yards, making visits for the dogs (for Cecil) and watering easier (for me), and as I work on the fence, now is the time to figure one out if we're going to do it. Only three panels left. I'm thinking a Hobbit sized gate set in the middle of a panel. YouTube must have some suggestions to offer.