We’ve been picking the large tomatoes as soon as they start showing a hint of color this year — the squirrels have been particularly evil, and if we don’t harvest tomatoes as soon as possible, the little bastards leave partially-eaten tomatoes all over the yard. When I went out this morning to water and...
Read more →The more I focus on growing as much of our own food as possible, the more I’m bothered by waste. The bread that stales before we can use it, the vegetable trimmings, that last bit of coffee in the decanter; I’ve found ways to use all of that. But what to do with the...
Read more →A couple of years ago, I wrote about the method I use for drying tomatoes — oven-drying. It’s a really simple method, and one that works for me because air-drying is impossible due to Michigan’s humid summers, and I still can’t justify shelling out a few hundred dollars for a good quality food dehydrator....
Read more →I’ll confess up front to being haphazard when it comes to pruning my own tomato plants. Some years, I don’t pinch out a single sucker, and others, I’m very diligent about it. In my experience, the years I take the time to pinch out suckers are more productive, not to mention a little neater....
Read more →One of the best things you can do to get your tomatoes off to a good start is to plant them correctly. Tomatoes are oddballs in that they like to be planted deeply — with not just their root ball, but also most of their stem buried in the soil. Why Should You Plant...
Read more →The title of this sounds like one of those bad “why did the chicken cross the road?” jokes, but it’s a very common problem among tomato growers. It’s frustrating to wait for a tomato, and then, when it’s finally ripe, to discover that its split in the last day or so. Splitting is caused...
Read more →The chill in the air has me looking at my tomato plants, and all of that green fruit hanging from them, and wondering if they’ll have enough time to ripen. Luckily, there is no frost in the forecast, and we’re supposed to get warm weather next week, so I have a bit more time....
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