Tomatoes

Not a perfect haul this fall, but more abundant than I expected! My goal was to plant tomatoes and can as much as possible. I started with my neighbors in the Compound: What did they grow with success? Ah, they loved the question! Something other than Harry Reid and Nevada's crummy economy! Tomatoes, of course, and squashes, peppers of all ilk, berries, herbs, and forget the fussy stuff. Fussy stuff? Peas, carrots, broccoli, and brussel sprouts. Oh, right, no one likes to eat that anyway. And, what did they do with all this produce once ripe and ready? They gave it away to their neighbors. Who had, er, gardens of their own? Why...yes, wouldn't you? Well, I think I'd can some of it, you know there's research about the plastic liner in cans that causes----oh, sorry you gotta run. Right. Catch up with you later. Thanks, good luck yourself! A case of TMI, perhaps delivered by a too eager messenger. The rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar warned me of this years ago: you just can't save everyone.

Back to tomatoes. This year's garden started with Heirloom Tomatoes from my neighbor, Lori. I'm not sure which heirloom variety. I wonder if heirlooms are really the collected seed of mutant plants gone awry. I also used tomato seed from Home Depot, which seemed a sturdy and reliable brand. Lastly, while running off to get the mail one Saturday recalled that the high school was hosting a plant sale. All I wanted to do was look, but the Future Farmers of America convinced me to buy their sturdiest yet hybrid tomato. I was impressed and bought four. As my neighbors know well, you grow all this indoors because nothing goes in the ground until after Memorial Day Weekend. June first looked like a good day, but I lazed off into the land of procrastination. Just as well. The rest of June's first week was a nasty deep freeze. Afterwards, in went the plants. They grew well. Those hybrids, however, were otherworldly, producing one very small anemic cluster of blooms for every 2 foot of daily growth.

In hindsight, I think I fed the plant when I should have been starving it to produce its fruit. Clearly the plants were enjoying the sun, the chemically correct and compostedly nourished soil, and growing themselves into a frenzy of green. Their fruits were an afterthought, which contradicts good evolutionary practice. Eventually, tomatoes started to show up on the vines. Home Depot was first, then the crazy heirlooms, and then came the hybrids who went overnight from bloom to bowling ball-sized fruit bending their wire cages in half. I waited for the red to show. Waited and waited and waited. Then one night mid-October a neighbor phoned me. Get those tomatoes in, she cried, a really big freeze is coming! Right. It was late. I was on the verge of bed. I stepped outside. Doesn't seem any colder than it usually is. No! cried the neighbor, either you harvest them tonight or cover 'em up and hope for mercy! Ok, cover it is.
Gotta use sleeping bags, too--or else! She sighed loudly and with a bit of...disgust? before hanging up. Some tomato farmer I was! All the towels in the house went outside converting my green frenzy into a papasan chair convention.

All was saved, but not for long. November showed up. November isn't a maybe; it does freeze at night without hesitation. I picked all the red, got it blanched and crushed, and into the huge stockpot. Then there was the green. Lots of it. The freeze neighbor suggested I try canning a green tomato salsa. I was game but that meant 4 gallons of the stuff. Remembering that apples exude ethylene gas as they ripen, I packed the house with green tomatoes and apples. And that produces a vague odor of the sort that stops people at the door. Two weeks later, the green is transforming to ripe red, and into the stockpot it goes. Thus far, I've canned 22 quarts of tomato sauce. That is a lotta tomatah.

Am I done yet? No. There remains two card tables covered with greenish-red tomatoes. The green salsa neighbor is thinking I should can a green-red salsa just to get 'em outta your house!
Was it a perfect haul? No. Next time I starve those vines!!