Okay, to prove to the few doubters of you that yes indeed I am human and have actual limits in this food preservation thing: I hit a huge wall on Wednesday night. BANG.
I was making another batch of corn/black bean salsa and took time out to play with the family and geese/turkeys and then put the kid to bed and as I was reading her the 4th story, wow, all I wanted to do was stay right there in the bed with her and not get up again. Ah. Couldn’t do it though: had the salsa to make, then can.
So I mentioned it to Tom. Then I took a tour early Thursday a.m. of the gardens and came back in and asked him: can you help me kill my tomato plants? Because, as the good earth mother that I am, I am unable to uproot these green children of mine and I need help.
Last night, in the rain, we uprooted the remaining 25 or so paste tomato plants outdoors, harvested the ripe ones, put the greenies in the greenhouse to redden, and composted the remainder. Relief!!!
Now, I have a whole weekend to freak out about what to do with two full bushels of tomatoes.
Glad you came to visit!
Got something to say? Email me at fastweedpuller at gmail dot com.
fast grow the weeds 
I suggest giving them to the food pantry and taking the weekend off.
Eat a whole heck of a lot of tomato sandwiches! 🙂
…thinking…maybe if I slide my two bushels in as you’re putting yours up you won’t notice mine…. 😉
Good for you – there’s comes a point when it’s okay to cry uncle and go do something else for a while. I hit the wall with bush beans and pole beans this year. I’m still okay eating them, but I AM NOT preserving a single more bean.
You could always send your two bushels over here if you’d like – our 14 paste tomato plants are still green…
I hear you! I just said to Kevin that today is the day, the tomato plants have to be pulled out. I can’t wait any longer for them to ripen. I have winter vegetables that need the space. eviction notice will be posted! ha!
In the rain! It’s so Hitchcockian. (Is that a word? It is now.)
I feel for you. Weep, weep.
I’ve been trying out my new dehydrator on the tomatoes. The intensity of tomato flavor is surprising. My plants are on the way to the compost as well. It’s time to think about next year’s garden.
Pamela! Great suggestion. As it is, they all found good homes.
Anne, ack, yes; am getting really tired of tomato sandwiches though. (Can I even say that?)
Robin, you sneak. Even discounting all this rain or the possibility of a bad season, I still don’t know what I was thinking. But don’t look to me if a box of tomatoes shows up at your door!
Yeah, Laura, I did the same thing with broccoli this year. Enough was plenty so the plants got composted and I felt not too awful about it. Maybe more dried beans for you next year? Those you can absolutely ignore. And sorry things aren’t redding up by you. I know that can be frustrating, with frost beckoning.
Kathy, exactly! Get those babies out of there, time to make room for winter stuff. It’s still hard though.
CC, yeah, in the rain!! Made us hurry and made me not linger over the loss. Sigh.
Becky, cool. What kind of dehydrator did you get? There’s a $200 at Lehman’s that I am still weighing (hey, my oven is paid for, even if it doesn’t have a fan in it). I dried some cherry tomatoes 2 years ago and froze them as they weren’t bone-dry after their stay in the oven. They were pretty tasty. I would thaw them and run a few in the food processor with some garlic for a good blast of flavor.
whimper.