THE END - OR THE BEGINNING?

What horrible hot weather we have had!

I spent a little bit of the extremely hot weekend picking green tomatoes and pulling out the dead plants that they were clinging to.  Although I still have some living plants that have a lot of tomatoes on them that I hope will vine ripen - this is the third vegetable I have had to pull out of the garden because the plants were finished.

I pulled five small tomato plants and got all these off those 5 tiny plants.  Mostly green, which is not at all what I had hoped, but still a fairly good crop, all things considered.

I am not the most patient person, I really would rather not have to wait until these all ripen to process them, but I have had a few suggestions and hints passed my way to make the waiting a bit easier.

To use up some green tomatoes, it was suggested I make some Green Tomato Chutney.  I have tasted other chutney's and loved them, so no reason to think I would not love this as well, so I have looked up several recipes online, and have decided to make some Green Tomato Apple Chutney with some of my green tomatoes.

The other hint I received from a friend is that if you don't have enough ripe tomatoes to can, or process however you were going to - you can pop them in the freezer after you pick them without doing anything to them ( except wash of course).  When you have enough in the freezer to make into whatever you want to make - you simply take them out of the freezer, set in a bowl of WARM water - the skins will peel off easily, and you can proceed to process them as you would.  They don't loose any flavour or colour when you do this, and you don't waste any tomatoes while waiting for others to get ripe.

I have a feeling I might be doing this as well.  I want to make some sauce and can some whole as well, so hopefully this method will work in my favour.

In the meantime, Gary and I are eating fresh tomatoes every day, and enjoying every bite.  Next year I plan to grow some different varieties, but more about that later on.

So the garden is coming to an end, but the work in the kitchen ( for me) is just beginning.  I have a feeling that I will be spending quite a few days processing a variety of vegetables all at one time, because nothing is going according to plan in my garden this year.

I am predicting that the garden will be empty - except perhaps for the beets, pumpkins and squash, within the next week.  And this year I am quite excited to have it empty sooner rather than later because as soon as it is empty, we plan to start our new garden plan for next year, which is going to require a few building skills.

So out to the garden I go - it's a cool day here today finally, and if it doesn't rain, I should be able to get a lot done  - I hope.


Take Care, and I'll talk to you soon!