Ripe Red Beauties

It's the end of August and if you've put in enough hours and the season has been kind to you, this means bountiful harvest days for the New England gardener. Our garden, thanks to the efforts of all of us and my mom's devoted watering, we are experiencing just this. But of all the veggies we've enjoyed throughout the summer, the most anticipated harvest has definitely been the tomatoes. My mom started many varieties inside from seed in the spring when Dylan and I were in Hawaii and at last, after months of watering, propping, pruning, and waiting, we have ripe, red tomatoes. The wait was 100% worth it.


Tomatoes aren't the only thing we've grown all summer.We have had so much kale this month, that I have been throwing it in just about everything. We cooked a batch of kale for brunch last weekend, shredded and sauteed in  buttery onions and tossed with quartered cherry tomatoes, one of my favorite ways to eat veggies for breakfast. Dylan had it accompany the bacon, maple sausage, and toad-in-the-hole style eggs and toast. We ate outside at the picnic table as a great blue heron circled above us in search of a good fishing spot down at the pond by the house where I grew up. The sun was shining, warm but not hot. It was a perfect morning for eating al fresco. I was so caught up in catching the elusive great blue heron of my childhood that by the time I thought of snagging a picture of our fanciful feast, everyone was already licking their plates. Next time...

We have also eaten our fair share of zucchinis, summer squash and crook neck squash, mostly sauteed and added to veggie and sometimes sausage stir fry, combined with kale, or pasta, or rice, or tossed in a casserole with cheese and bread crumbs, a recipe my mom has been using since I was a kid.

We also have tons of little banana peppers growing, my favorite variety and not something I imagined would fair well in our Vermont garden seeing how much the loved the heat and sun of Hawaii. The eggplants on the other hand did not share the peppers' fate. Only one plat flowered at all but never fruited, and none of them grew taller than a six inches in three whole months. We feared the same would be happen to our melons but just this afternoon as I was checking in on the peppers, I noticed this little guy hanging out behind them.

But of all our crops, it was the tomato plants that drew me out to the garden when my summer camp ended and I was out of work feeling purposeless and stuck at home with no car. Taking care of our tomato plants saved my sanity. I learned the grave importance of a strong tomato cage as we lost a few healthy plants to the weight of their own fruit. Some of our heirloom varieties were so large they broke their own stem and died before they ever ripened and no amount of tying to posts would hold them up--they really needed a cage. I also learned which branches (called suckers) to cut away so that the plants can devote more of their energy to the fruit rather than leaves. The ones to cut are the ones shooting down like from the main stem like the bottom half of the letter "K." I wasn't sure at first but the more time I spent pruning, the more I noticed that the flowers were always on the top shooting stem while the bottom ones always browned first and eventually fell off on their own. Each time I pruned, more and more tomatoes popped up the next day while others began to turn orange and then red. So day after day I checked in on them, removing the dead, damaged, and unnecessary branches and literally enjoyed the fruit of my labor.

I love fresh tomatoes, and there is nothing, I mean nothing, more rewarding than biting into one you spent months sweating over. Sure, the ones at the farmers market are far more beautiful and taste equally amazing, but there is something about a homegrown tomato. I have been eating them chopped or sliced with just a drizzle of tasty olive oil (a flavorful extra virgin), a sprinkling of chunky sea salt and some fresh ground black pepper, that is if I can wait till I get back from the garden before popping them into my mouth. I've also made a few tomato salads, most recently with chopped cucumbers, red onion, mint, and feta cheese, coated in some more olive oil, salt, and pepper, and perhaps a squeeze of lemon. Yep, tomato season is the best. There are so many varieties in so many colors and I love them all. And soon, the tomatillos will be ripe and I can tear into those little green paper lantern shells like they're Christmas presents and I'm that eight year old kid again who woke everyone up at 5am bouncing off the walls with excitement.