Large San Marzano tomatoes are sun ripening on the vines in Maebeth Fulmer’s backyard raised beds, dense and verdant with winter squash, basil, cantaloupe, and zucchini plants, to name a few.

Soon she will use the tomatoes to can 18 pints of spaghetti sauce for the winter.

When the blackberries are ready, she will make dozens of jars of raspberry and blackberry jams for her six children, 16 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren, and five great-great-grandchildren. At age 99, Maebeth cannot imagine giving up her gardening, canning, and jam making.

“We always had a garden,” said the Sandpoint resident, referring to the years she and her husband raised their six children. Now, her oldest child is 80, and Maebeth is still gardening.

For years, Maebeth had a producing nectarine tree in her backyard, but it succumbed to peach-leaf curl. She has a prolific pear tree, but there was too much rain in the early summer for the cherry tree to produce fruit.

“The peas have finished, the lettuce, leeks, and raspberries are done,” she said, but she is still picking strawberries every day. “I need to pick the blueberries next.

“I do all the planting. It’s work, but I enjoy it,” she said.

Maebeth’s grapevines hang high off the back patio trellises. In October she generally has so many grapes she cannot use them all. She juices her St. Croix and Concord grapes and lines her shelves with 50 quarts of the juice in order to open about a jar each week.

Her gardens are lush. She attributes this to the compost she adds to the soil. “Every year I put a bag of compost over each of my raised beds, then we put a cover over it. In the spring we dig it in and add more compost. “I’ve been doing this for years, so the soil is wonderful. Through the years it has gotten better and better,” she said.

To keep the vegetables watered deep down, Maybeth puts holes around the bottom two-thirds of plastic milk jugs and plants the jugs deep into the soil. Only the top opening can be seen; this allows the plants to receive water near their roots.

Maebeth has help in her gardens now because she deals with a common heart rhythm condition, Atrial Fibrillation, or A-fib.

Sherrie Bruncow treats plants like some people treat their children and their pets. If she sees plants in the local grocery stores looking puny, she has no problem talking to the employees about remediation. At Maebeth’s, she considers the health of each plant and does what it takes to make sure they are in the place they need to be. She weeds and helps Maebeth with rose pruning, as well. “I don’t know what I would do without Sherrie,” Maebeth said.

Maebeth’s heart condition has not prevented her from knitting receiving blankets for the hospital. Her home is filled with her own oil paintings and she just this week brought her sewing machine downstairs in order to start sewing some again. She formerly worked for Singer and gave sewing lessons using their machines. Later, she took college courses in tailoring and began her own business teaching people how to sew.

She does not consider herself a religious person, though she hopes there is something after this life. She believes her longevity is probably due to genetics. Her father was an oil driller in California, and he died in an accident when she was only 2 years old, but she knows some of his relatives lived a very long time. “They were Iowa farmers and one of my relatives, probably a great uncle, was still farming at age 95,” she said. Her mother passed away in her late 80s. All six of her children, five sons and one daughter, are still living.

She only tried alcohol — a beer — once. “It was terrible,” she said. She tried smoking a cigarette when she was young, “but it made me very sick,” she said.

Maebeth’s mind is still sharp and her attitude is positive. She has been doing crossword puzzles for years and enjoys reading history and non-fiction.

“Mom is a bit of a Pollyanna,” said her youngest son, Ross, “and it has worked!” (Ross Fulmer and his wife, Mary Armstrong, have returned to live in Sandpoint after a long run in Hawaii.)

“I just think people worry and fuss over stuff they can’t do anything about,” Maebeth said. She subscribes to the theory that happiness is a choice, and she chooses it.

“I am a Pollyanna! I go to bed every night thinking of the good things that happened that day. I’ve always done that. I find the joy and I wish that for others, too.”

What are the plans for her 100th birthday next March?

“Maybe my kids will surprise me,” she said.

One thing is for sure. Everyone will go home with jars of homemade jam.