How does Your Garden Grow?

I haven't written about the garden this summer because I've been so consumed by the remodeling nonsense. We've still been gardening, though. In fact, our 40-something tomato plants are working hard to produce all kinds of fruit. In fact, we're in the middle of our peak picking. It usually happens a little earlier in the season, but the weather has been strange this year, and the glut happened about a month later than normal. Better late than never, I say. Goodness knows it didn't hurt the crop. This was one day's worth of picking last week.

Yeah, I know. It hasn't slowed down, either. We pick about that many tomatoes two or three times a week. We have beautiful grape tomatoes.

So many we pick them and snack on them like potato chips. Which is okay until they reach the lower part of your colon.

And we have the bigger tomatoes.

They're everywhere.

They make fabulous BLT's, of which we've had many this summer.

Why do we have some many plants? Because we enjoy trying different varieties, and we are tomato nuts. We sit around in the winter and wax nostalgically for a good juicy summer tomato. What do we do with all of them? I can some for soups and chili in the winter months. Mama cans some, too. In fact, she took all of the sixteen gallons of tomatoes in that first photo, canned some of them and shared the rest with six other families. Six! That's awesome. We give them away to neighbors, friends, family, the ladies who work at the drug store. Basically, anyone who wants them, needs them or allows their arm to be twisted when we're begging people to take them. We just enjoy growing them and sharing them. Oh, and eating them.

This is the last year we will grow tomatoes in this backyard. Hubby has a new garden spot picked out at the new house, which has a huge backyard. We'll have a whole new big space to practice our farming skills. Ha! And a whole new bunch of neighbors to pawn those maters off on.