Sunday, September 20, 2009

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.

5 comments:

Mia said...

hmmm...did I mention I am tomato deprived at the moment??

Kelley with Amy's Angels said...

Holy cow! I thought I was going crazy with our 4 cherry tomato plants. You beat me by a mile (or more!).

Jason, as himself said...

This seriously made my mouth water. I LOVE your tomato posts.

New house? Obviously I have missed some very important information during my hiatus. Must catch up....

Trailboss said...

One can never have too many maters. There is always someone wanting some or if they don't want any more because everyone is giving them away you can always shove them in their face! Our plants have petered out but not our neighbors! They are going on vacation in a week and we will reap what they have in their garden!!!!

oreneta said...

I have to send you some seeds, if I could ever find them, of some of the tomatoes here. OH my goodness.

I was just looking at photos a friend sent. They made 170 litres of tomato sauce.

Goodness, that was a LOT of tomatoes.

Do you store any?