For 4 years, my tomato garden has been cursed. First year, freak early frost killed every fruit and blossom in days. Second year, trees were felled and flattened that half of the garden. Last year, flooding left the ground submerged for almost a solid week, then a month of 95+ weather baking their soggy boughs, and by the time they were recovered it was already getting cold at night and fruit barely set.
So this year I took all those lessons and overplanted, wanting to get something out of them. I set them out early, built a trellis frame that I could throw plastic over when it was cold, and shade cloth when they looked scorched. And garden fabric to keep weeds down and the soil moist. I even ran a passive drip line from my goldfish pond to give em a little pep when it rained. And holy hell did that work.
Every week, a 5g bucket of grape tomatoes. A bus-tub full of 1.5lb Cherokee Purples. Another of Sart Roloise. Now, another tub of 2lb Old Germans on top of that (which were labeled as Black Krim, but that's on me). And that's not even counting the wall of Okalpas that have never grown that well, but I gave one last year to prove themselves.
And did they. The grapes and Okalpas and can trim and toss into the chest freezer until I need them, but I've never had this kind of luck with beefsteak. I can't eat them fast enough. I've been slicing them and throwing them into the dehydrator — but I honestly don't really love the taste that way, and they're so big and 3 tomatoes is enough to fill all 6 levels for a couple days. They're so juicy, making sauce is a full day of simmering down, so canned salsa is about the only solution I'm finding to use them fast enough. But I now have 30+ pints of salsa, and an entire counter-top of yesterday's harvest.
My neighbors and coworkers have accepted all they want. I'm almost ready to just set out a shelf at the curb and put them up for grabs until I can see my sink again.
So! What are your favorite ways to capture the bounty before they drown me?
by suibhnebheag
1 Comment
Personally, I grow for giveaways; I try to bring a “farm box” to business clients every year or two, so I have no trouble getting rid of them (it’s a fairly long list of people….main difficulty is making sure I have enough nice-looking ones to cover everybody — even in a very good year, I’ll be lucky to get 500lbs worth that aren’t too cracked or catfaced).
But I’ve got a garden buddy who sells backyard produce & makes a decent amount of pocket change doing it. Mainly peaches — she has like twenty peach trees — but also tomatoes & peppers. Iirc, she charges $4/lb for tomatoes, and has no trouble getting rid of them.
Anyways, if it was me I’d try selling them. Obviously it’s not “worth” the time & effort….but if you have to pick ’em anyways? Might as well get some fertilizer money out of it for next year 🙂