Tomatoes

One of my favorite things about having a yard, is all the fresh produce we get.  We have been getting tomatoes for about a month and a half.  Luckily, my family loves tomatoes, and we eat them about as fast as we can pick them.

It is Makenzie's job to pick the tomatoes.  I think we only see about half the cherry tomatoes she picks.  Everytime I look outside, she is popping them in her mouth as fast as she picks them.

I went to McDonalds last week and I ordered a salad.  It had these beautiful red grape tomatoes on the top.  When I bit into them, I was shocked at how flavorless they were.  It has been a long time since I have eaten a store bought tomato.  It is going to be so hard to go back to those beautiful, flavorless tomatoes when we run out of fresh tomatoes.  We had BLTs the other day.  I thought I was in heaven!

A few weeks ago, we finally got to the point where we had picked more tomatoes than we could eat, and I decided to can some.

I finally bought my own canning equipment this year.  I canned by myself for the first time last year, but I had to borrow everything.  It felt great to be a little more self sufficient this time.  I still spent most of the day on the phone with my mom.

After all my efforts, I had 4 pints of tomatoes.  The next day, I checked them, and I found that only two had sealed.  When we planted our garden, we planted tomatoes and jalapeños, and I pictured myself bottling enough salsa to feed the world.  Our jalapeños are just starting to grow, and I don't think I will ever have enough tomatoes to bottle the amount that I would like, and that is okay.  If the only benefit I get from my tomatoes is the fresh produce that I get to eat all summer, it will be more than worth it.

On related gardening news, our pumpkins have taken over the east side of our yard, we finally found out how to grow non-bitter cucumbers, and we found our first little baby watermelon and cantaloupe today.