its worth it

ITS WORTH IT

way back in the unrelenting humid heat of july
hb the ut grad student and i prepared this bed
in my organic garden for planting my six fall tomatoes

yes you have to think ahead when gardening
i kept the tomatoes protected early on
with solar screening to keep away the oppressive heat
watered them with some drip irrigation
combining it with deep watering underground

for this bed i used buried 5 gallon buckets between
each tomato
with holes drilled on the bottom and up above ground
to allow the water to get deep into the soil

i chose to not stake them but leave them growing on
the ground
so it would be easier to cover them up this fall

we fought off lots of grasshoppers
and
too much rain
at one point
but
as i looked forward to this upcoming week
there was that
first freeze warning for the hill countries

so
i told my wife she
its time

so
i went out and picked
all my eggplants
all my okra
went into the freezer and pulled out our frozen purple hull peas
dumped the chopped eggplants and chopped okra
into a crockpot with the peas

adding my pea bean recipe
ms dash seasoning salt crushed black pepper butter olive oil
chopped garlic chopped onion chopped poblano pepper
a can of diced fire roasted tomatoes was added
the concoction was cooked for several hours
added a pan of my wife shes cast iron skillet cornbread to the meal
it doesnt get better than that
most of the ingredients were from our garden
eggplant peas okra garlic onions poblano

then
we harvested all of the tomatoes
well the biggest ones

the smaller ones got left on the vines
hoping that by adding the white row cover
maybe just maybe they would survive to grow larger
time will tell

i know i have lost all my fall tomatoes before from freezing
i was determined to not let that happen this time

im glad we covered them up well
since this weekend we got below 28 degrees here
at the country n

so far i have been afraid to peak under the row cover
at the tomatoes and peppers
to see if they survived the freeze
maybe today i will

so we took all these green tomatoes
probably close to
well we didnt count them
but lets say 50-100 of these medium sized green tomatoes
wrapped each one in newspaper
dropped them in this box
we also picked a few peppers bell banana jalapeno poblano

in a few weeks they will be the most delicious organic tomatoes
much better than what is in the stores now

here is one that was almost ripe
it will be eaten today four days after it was picked
it is a tycon tomato

thanks to hb for planting these

my wife she and i want to wish everyone
a happy thanksgiving

the organicgreen doctor