Tomatoes

The best part of the year is about to come to a close. Summer, you say? Not yet. July…it’s gone. No, it’s fresh tomato time.

Now, there is nothing better on this earth than a fresh home-grown tomato, and my husband humors me every year by growing enough to keep me satisfied as long as the plants are producing. But all good things must come to an end.

And I think it’s entirely too soon. And some who planted later or have different plants may keep getting them for awhile. But ours have about played out, he tells me. And the bad part is the last few he picked are rotting at an alarming rate.

I don’t refrigerate tomatoes as they lose flavor in the cold. I figured that out a long time ago, then actually read it somewhere to validate what I already knew. So my counter top has been covered for the last month in red, rip tomatoes. I like to wait until they’re super ripe to eat them, which is easy to do when you have a plenty.

But you do need to keep watch and use them before they go bad either by eating them or putting them up. I have put up some, but the vast majority have been part of my meals…breakfast, lunch and dinner some days.

I have kept a few other people in tomatoes, but mostly I have consumed a lot of tomatoes. And, I haven’t yet had a plain tomato sandwich. I’ve had a couple of BLTs (bacon, lettuce and tomato), but no plain tomato at this writing. However, by the time you read this I may have remedied that situation.

As many will attest, there isn’t much better than some fresh white bread with lots of mayonnaise, and red ripe tomato sliced in between two pieces. I know it’s not very healthy, but sometimes you just have to indulge.

I mentioned Jimmy said they are the last ones. Kathy rarely goes to the garden…that’s his baby. I do help a little. I’ll wash what he picks, and if it needs freezing, I’ll do that. But mostly it’s Jimmy’s garden, and he does all the work.

I may have mentioned in this space before that Jimmy semi-retired earlier this year. It’s not much semi, it’s mostly retired, so he has plenty of time to work in the garden. Lord knows, he doesn’t spend any time working in the house.

Jimmy did some work for a man in the spring, who paid him partly in plants which is one reason we had so many tomatoes. We also had a good many cucumbers, but not nearly enough.

Jimmy does make pickles in the house. He loves doing it, and those who like his pickles really like them! They are hot dill pickles with various kinds of peppers in there to create the heat.

This person that gave Jimmy plants gave him pepper plants that he thought were Shishitos. They’re not supposed to be hot. Well, he fixed them up like the man suggested, and boy, were they hot. Well, after a couple tries, we said, oh, well, ours are hot.

Turns out they’re not shishito, but rather padron. And, they have a reputation for being hot. They live up to their reputation. Of course, we also have plain old jalapeños, which are great stuffed with some cream cheese and wrapped in bacon and grilled. (Again, Jimmy’s job.)

So Jimmy may be happy when the garden plays out…he’ll just get to work on another project, but Kathy is sure going to miss her tomatoes.