Gathering In

I took a look at the forecast for the next few nights and realized that the freezes are here to stay. That means that the tomatoes needed to be stripped of anything that could possibly ripen inside (which is pretty much anything shiny dark green instead of dull colored green).

I went out to my now-frostbitten plants and found over 30 pounds of maters, all the way from deep red to green. I have them spread out in produce boxes left over from Costco nectarines and peaches so that the green ones have time to ripen and they all can not mold before I get around to using them.

 I separated the very green tomatoes from the ones that were trying to ripen already and made sure to only have the ripening maters in a fairly thin layer to minimize squishage.

Here you see all but the red tomatoes, which I am using for dinner, and thus, have no photo. Please forgive the booze bottles--my husband was bottling beer last night and those are the remaining empties (now if only either of us could drink more than a glass a week we might get rid of some of the bottles!).

Eventually, once the maters are more or less ripe, they will be turned into sauce and frozen...or just chopped up and frozen depending on how industrious I want to be. Heck, I may even can some and break in that pressure cooker again!

I also picked a half-bag of raspberry leaves (minus any spiny bits on the leaf stem) and a large handful of mint for tea. The leaves are all drying in the dehydrator right now (95 degrees for my records) and we will have tasty tea during the winter--free of pesticides, shipping costs, and well...any costs other than the electricity to dry the leaves.

I think that covers it for now. (and so far, no sprouting in the new bed)