Day 237
Another family tradition is Tomatofest. Every year, my wife and mother-in-law go tomato picking and spend at least a full day preparing tomatoes to be canned and preserved. What's left is mason jars full of tomato sauce, tomato paste, and salsa. Occasionally, applesauce and peaches make their way into the day, but tomatoes always take center stage. I do my part by getting out of their way. In all reality, I help out as much as I can but my main responsibility is keeping the kids occupied when they are not assisting.
Early in the morning, my wife and mother-in-law meet at a local vegetable farm and pick pounds and pounds of tomatoes. Without any failure, this ends up being a draining day with hot temperatures and high humidity. Once the tomatoes are picked and transported to the house of choice, they are washed, cut, quartered, chopped, diced, mixed, separated and prepared into a variety of delicious items available throughout the year.
We hated tomatofest for the first time this year. The temperature was one of the hottest days of the last few days’ Luckily, we didn't need to pick up tomatoes from a local farm as we could more than we could ever imagine in our own backyard. Tomatofest extended its hours and is no longer a one-day extravaganza. Because of the absolute tomato]o and vegetable explosion in our garden, Tomatofest has been going on for the last few days and has no end in sight.
Going out every day is both exciting and redundant. It's great to see our garden producing extremely well but with every item picked, there is plenty of work available considering many of them are not preferred to be eaten raw. With the temperatures and humidity so extreme this harvest season, checking the garden has become a combination of a work out and a trip to the sauna, even in the early morning hours. But all this garden success has led to new things to consider. The abundance of tasty food to prepare and preserve has got us second-guessing our storage space and shopping for an additional refrigerator in the garage.
It’s definitely a good problem to have.
