Tomato Day

No recipes today.

Nope. I'm tired of cooking. I've been eating too much anyway. It's bad when they tell you to suck in your gut and you already are.

Instead I'm going to update you on this year's tomato crop. After last year's Topsy-Turvy Death Plant fiasco I was a little gun shy about this season. I decided to go old school and forget about fancy inventions and just stick to basics, well almost completely.

This year there are 11 tomato plants on the deck. Eight are store bought seedlings and three have been reared from seed. We've got Early Girls and Better Boys, BeefMasters and Ox Hearts, ripening Roma and reluctant Cherries. We will soon have more tomatoes than any reasonable person will know what to do with.

And yes, I did re-erect Tomato Death Star 2008. It is the proud home to the Ox Hearts. I don't know if it's the type of tomato or the stand, but the Ox Hearts are taking their sweet, meaty time to ripen.

This year we've been dealing with a raccoon-possum issue. For about a month now the plants have been subjected to sporadic nocturnal raids. The varmints in question pick a tomato, take a bite and then leave. Everyone knows that possum and raccoon don't eat tomatoes. Every book will tell you that they in fact hate tomatoes. Regrettably, my vermin don't read.

The winning plant as far as yield goes is the Roma. Somewhere around late June it went nuclear and started budding fruit at a ludicrous rate. I was actually worried that the deck's support structure would be adversely affected by the added fruit weight. At last count there were over 40 tomatoes in varying stages of ripeness. A nice batch of sauce I'd say.

that's all for today's update. I'll be back cooking soon; face it, I have to do something with all this stuff. So until next time, remember , you can do it, you can cook especially when I'm not in the mood.