Missing: Tomatoes. A lot of tomatoes.
Suspect: The usual suspects.
Due to some rather draconian firearm laws in my town, I can’t deal with the tomato thieves the way I’d like. So far, the squirrels have out-consumed the family to a ratio of about 3 to 1.
However, if I lived in the city I’d be dealing with a whole other class of thieves.
Too many tomatoes, what a chore! NOT!
Primo and The Principessa made this wonderful tart on Saturday
Arrived home from a week at the lake to discover complete devastation of the tomatoes. Not really sure what kind of varmint we’re dealing with but a varmint for sure. Half-eaten tomatoes strewn around the back yard, both beautifully ripe and green. I guess the varmint ran out of ripe tomatoes mid-week.
This tomato was the only one left undamaged and close to ripe. But it needed at least another day (and probably two) so I left it on the vine. Came out this morning to find one tiny bite taken out of it. Curses! Foiled!
And so far it’s the heavyweight winner, even with a we bit removed. 2 lbs. 5/8 ounces.
Tonight we’ll have our first pasta sauce of the season from our own tomatoes. A simple Pomodoro I think.
Last night we roasted a bunch of hothouse tomatoes in The Egg and then chopped them up and combined them with some sauteed onion and garlic and the first of our own basil. Not too bad a pasta sauce if I do say so. Next time I might forgo the oak chips in The Egg, though. It was a wee bit smoky.
The recent cold weather in Florida has caused a major shortage of tomatoes in the rest of the country. This has caused some fast food restaurants to stop using tomatoes in their food unless specifically asked to. Not that this is a bad thing based on how bad those tomatoes usually are.
On the bright side, I’ve ordered my seedlings rather than starting seeds this year. With so many varities available as live plants it seemed like too much trouble to start my own. But the snow had better melt soon as I asked for a “first half of April” delivery.
What was I thinking?
After a wonderful Christmas in Colorado which found the Principessa conquering high-altitude Yorkshire Pudding, (which turned out great at an altitude of 8500 ft. I might add) and Segundo and TB making a gingerbread village we returned to a mailbox stuffed with seed catalogs. I promised The Principessa I would only grow 2 kinds of tomatoes this year. The red kind and the not-red kind.
Some of you have asked if we’ve had any problems with the fungus that is affecting tomato growers up and down the east coast. Well, it’s good news/bad news….While we haven’t had any evidence of the Late Blight that is grabbing the headlines, we’ve been battling our usual problem with Early Blight that always affects us during particularly wet summers.
Excuse me, I need to go fire up the sprayer. Again.
On Tuesday this week we had our first meal from our own tomatoes. A simple pasta sauce made from about 10 Super Marzanos, a little onion, a little garlic, a little olive oil and a HUGE handful of basil. Spectacular. The meal used up all of our ripe tomatoes (except the cherries, we’re swimming in those) but we’re going to be able to eat the first slicers this weekend. We’ll keep you posted.
