hail storm

There was a big hail storm yesterday. At first I was worried about our tomatoes. It turned out that all the large tomatoes were fine, but a bunch of the still-green pear and cherry tomatoes got knocked off their vines. We'll have to pickle them or something. The real damage was to the chard, as you can see above. This compelled me to harvest much of the chard: a total of 5 lbs.

This much chard fills up our 16 quart pot. I'm getting pretty good at quickly blanching and freezing large amounts of chard:

1. Rinse a large handful in a large bowl or bucket.
2. Chop with knife.
3. Put in pot with a few inches of water.
4. Steam until soft, stirring often.
5. Rinse in cold water.
6. Put in freezer bags (in sheets for breaking later)