Victory Garden

[jmoore]

If you saw the August photo of the volunteer tomato plant, here it is as of last week:


Over 2 meters tall!

Have never fertilized or watered it. It's all the Maker's doing.

And full of green fruit- probably 40 or so. Have harvested about 5 ripe ones so far. Awlful late in the year to have this much crop out there....





Frozen figs (not the usual brown store bought kind):



They're frozen candy! Trying to eat only four or five a day, but it's really hard not to devour a whole sandwich ziploc bag of 'em at one fell swoop.

[jmoore]

It can't last much longer! October 27, and this monster is making enough tomatoes that the extras are being given away. We can't eat them all...





What's still outside on the 26th:



This was inside at the time!:



Gruesome death by frostbite by the 31st????

[old crow]

I seem to recall having seen green tomato preserves or jelly somewhere...

[Harlan (Deceased)]

My grandmother used to make green tomato preserves it in a large caldron on her stove and can it for us old crow.

I hadn't though about that for a long, long time.

It was really a lot better tasting than it sounds. She also made fried green tomatoes dipped in batter that were excellent.

[jmoore]

Looks like that it'll be green or nothing. Going to get too cold tomorrow to risk the largish remaining crop. Final photos in a few days.

[old crow]

I do love ripe tomatoes. My wife sometimes makes fried green tomato sandwiches with lettuce and bacon but even though I like tangy, spicey foods I just cannot like fried green tomatoes - just too bitter. Now, figs..I love these and eat them like candy, same for dates. Folks make preserves and jellies from some odd things but green tomato preserves just seems natural to me - better than fried... Ever eat thimbleberries? I lived in the U.P. for a few years and my wife, daughter and I hunted them and ate them on the spot. Tart !

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I love garden ripe tomatoes too. I've even used mayonnaise and made sandwiches out of them alone.
The green tomato preserves had lotsa sugar in them and seemed to take on a whole different taste, which was very good.

Nope, I don't even know what thimbleberries look like. I'll have to look that one up.
But I did take a bite out of a green persimmon once when I was a little kid - makes me pucker just thinking about it!

[jmoore]

Even ripe wild persimmons make me pucker. Sweet alum flavor- deer go nuts over 'em, though.

[jmoore]

Good gracious!



~150+ tomatoes snatched off before the freeze.





Many small, but not counting the 11 big ones pulled out for general slicing and eating "as is" there's 15 pounds to be pickled , etc.

Spent yesterday (11-11-11) planting bullets in the steel plate garden, with a cease fire during the 11th hour.

[old crow]

That is quite a range! I once had one on a friend's 70 acres of birch/Norway Pine forest but the land owner sold out to a developer...was heaven for me during the 10 years that I got to use it. The 'berry' on a Thimble Berry is a scarlet cap 2" or so in diameter on the top of a flowering stem - like the 'brown eye' on a Brown-eyed Susan. Plant has large soft leaves, grows 2 - 3' tall. Tart!