Monthly Archives: July 2012

Yesterday morning, I went outside and picked 30 lbs of tomatoes.

Remember the last time we picked 30 lbs of tomatoes? Less than a week ago?

Just like last time, I brought them in to Zac. He ran them through all the food mill, made a sauce, let it reduce all day– I can’t even tell you how wonderful the house smells right now– and he’s canning it as I write.

Our tentative total for canned sauce is, thus far, 3 flats of 12 quart jars. That is to say, we have canned NINE GALLONS of tomato sauce.

Luckily, we’ve got some serious cookware:

And here is the grisly aftermath:

While Zac was boiling away, I was pruning the vines. Since all the heirloom varieties we’re growing are indeterminate– the few store-bought commercial plants were determinate, and have already crisped up and passed on to tomato-heaven– they require a little management every now and then.

Since indeterminate plants grow continually, throughout the season, we can expect to have tomatoes until mid-October (although, with as many as we’re getting, we might not want them in mid-October!). The vines will continue to grow taller, so all we have to do to keep them fruiting part at a manageable height is is lower the vine down to the ground. This ingenious method, used by commercial tomato growers, I learned about this past January during my marathon dreaming sessions with The New Organic Grower.

The two main objects of pruning are to maximize tomato production by giving each leaf enough room to photosynthesize as efficiently as possible, and to prevent disease by keeping leaves and fruit off the ground.

I honestly thought the job would take a few hours– the rest of the morning, at most. Friends, I was hauling mulch, ripping back and composting dead vines, and tying up all the stragglers until the sun went down. And although I am usually very prone to wax rhapsodic about that fantastic tomato-leaf smell– I’m always asking Zac if he couldn’t make me a Cream of Tomato-Leaf Soup– I was a little disgusted by it by the end.

I’m quite proud (I also woke up a little sore, and am in serious denial of the fact that there’s a whole other bed of tomatoes that needs the same treatment, and that I’d better get it done while the weather’s this cool).

Anyway, I bet you’ll never guess what inspired our sock club’s July installment.

ETA: I just realized that the title of this blog post (unintentionally, I promise!) refers to this book about the dark side of Tomatoes. In case you were wondering.