Tuesday, October 11, 2011

A Bumper Crop

Normally a title like that would lead you to think it was a good thing.  But I'm not so sure.  :)

Way back in May, I asked Cameron to pick up some tomato plants.  A few of whatever he wanted but definitely three or four Roma plants.  My dear husband bought a flat of some kind that I have now forgotten the name of and four Roma's.  A FLAT!  Forty-eight!!  Fifty-two tomato plants for a family of four. 

We shared a few with our friends and I think Cameron ended up planting 28.  Did I mention that these plants, except the Roma's, were half dead?  Yeah, they looked pretty bad.  Which is why they were dirt cheap, which is why Cameron bought the whole flat.

If I remember correctly, it was a cold spring and then a very hot, humid summer.  You would think that most of those tomatoes would have ripened a long time ago.  We have gotten a few before now, but not that many.  Just enough for Cameron to have had a couple of tomato sandwiches plus a few.

Fast forward to Saturday night.  According to the Weather Channel the low will be 37 degrees.  I think to myself, "Good.  We've got some time before we need to deal with all of those not quite ripe tomatoes that are still on the vine."  There were quite a few.  A whole bunch actually.

Sunday morning I look out the window and what do I see?  Frost!  Of course it's only on the garden side of the yard.

I pretty much refused to think about it on Sunday, Kate was sick on Tuesday, so Wednesday I was ready to go check out the condition of all those tomatoes.  The tomatoes looked fine, but the vines were dead.  So....Callie and Kate got a fun little job.  Pick all of the tomatoes.  I was thinking they would be able to fill a couple of grocery bags.

How about six grocery bags?!  Six bags of mostly green tomatoes.



There were enough ripe Roma's to roast a pan full with garlic and olive oil and freeze that.  Hopefully the others will ripen on the table and not rot.

(Now it's Tuesday after the birthday party, well episode and very busy weekend)

I think I'm going to try canning green tomato salsa or relish.   I'll let you know how it turns out.

1 comment:

  1. Fried Green Tomato's yummm (and I'm not talking about the movie!)

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