Tomatoes

     The last two years I have grown my own tomato starts partly because I have found an easy method and this enables me to purchase any variety that appears special on the page of a seed catalog.  The end results is that I have more plants usually that my garden can really handle or that a harvesting person in the fall wants to deal with as in freezing or canning.

       My screening process of picking the seeds in the spring include lists of other's favorites particularly list from people and site that are in the Pacific Northwest.  Our summer's are too cool to really grow tomatoes so it is a challenge most summers but last summer even made that scale lean more to the impossible.  Sungold is always the exception, it comes though, sweet as candy and first to ripen.

       Now the physical problems of dealing with 75 or more large green tomatoes faces me.  My tiled widow ledge in the dining room is covered with piece of cardboard and unripened tomatoes with a new box of tomatoes picked yesterday.  I will roam around the internet to find out the last thoughts about dealing with these green balls.

        In August when I saw this problem coming I decided that next year I will built a hoop house over a couple of my raised beds and create the  warm temperatures for this vegetable to grow.  The secret about tomatoes is the night temperature.  Tomatoes grow at night along with egg plants and corn, night shade plants. The little secret about corn is it grows day and night.  I am not interested in corn! 

       I did have enough tomatoes to can and freeze some of the winter.  With some help of the greens ones I may even make it to part of spring.  I have found an Italian store in Seattle that sell tomatoes sauce in glass jars as  I have stopped purchasing anything in cans and grocery store tomatoes are tasteless.