2010 Harvest

Dave and I came home from Maui to the first harvest from our small garden.  When we moved into the new house I didn't have a garden space ready, and being the garden lover that I am - I purchased 6 small tomato plants and 2 small green pepper plants the first part of May and babied them along in the kitchen window of the rental.  Still not having a garden space ready by the 4th of July weekend, on Saturday, (July 3rd), I set the tomatoes out in the front shrub planter bed along with the shrubs, bird feeder and bird bath.  I also planted some old yellow squash seeds that I had.  I told Dave I knew they wouldn't grow, (since they were 5 years old) - but what the heck, I planted them anyways.  For several weeks our neighbors would walk by and wonder what kind of small shrubs we had planted.  The only thing I gave them was sunshine and water.  Then suddenly everything took off the first part of August and started growing and producing.  This is our first picking, and we have had a plastic grocery bag of tomatoes every week since we returned from Maui.  The pepper plants haven't produced but just a couple of peppers, the squash has been sparse, (but it did produce and they were good eating).

We gave about 1 bushel of tomatoes away to friends and family members.  I canned 1/2 bushel and I have another 1/2 bushel ready to can today.  I can't wait until next year to plant in my new raised garden beds.
Last Monday evening, (Oct 25th), I finally gave in and rather than risk the frost of "old man winter", I went out and picked last of the red tomatoes and the larger green tomatoes.  We pulled up all the plants and cleaned up the planter area.  I have about a bushel of green tomatoes in the garage that will ripen over the next month.  Dave and I will enjoy them, and have tomatoes on Thanksgiving Day from our small garden. 

Several years ago we went to Phoenix for a Kronenberg family Thanksgiving weekend.  I took a bag of tomatoes from our garden to share for the meal.  Dave's oldest brother, (Robert), ate one of the tomatoes and commented that it had been many, many years since he had actually tasted a tomato that "tasted like a tomato".  Dave just smiled and said "yea, Barb grows great tomatoes."

So -That's our tomato story for this year.  No zucchini, I wish I would have had some.  People just don't share zucchini like they used to - wonder why??