[gerberadaisy]

Originally Posted by Rea T

Everything I read on canning says to choose ripe tomatoes free of cracks, spots, soft spots, etc. I have no idea what garden they are growing their food in, but if I tossed all my 'defective' tomatoes I would seriously have about 1 lb instead of 30. Why should it make any difference if I am turning them into sauce? I plan on picking through and using the worst ones for sauce and then hopefully having enough 'nice' ones left for salsa.

(And yes, I am freaked out a bit by gnarly looking tomatoes and would love for them all to look perfect and untouched by bugs, but that is not the reality of my garden and I didn't plant 30 tomato plants for nothing.)

There's a point where I won't use some tomatoes, but for the most part, I use them all. I still have a few jars of tomatoes from two years ago and they haven't grown any mold. Now, I won't eat them because a year is about the longest I would trust MY canning but I just froze some sauce and many of them were defective.

I made zucchini chips out of squirrel (or some wild animal) bitten/clawed zucchini. I washed it well and cut off the parts that were clawed/bitten and called it good.