spiceoflife's Blog

There two big reasons I grow tomatoes in my garden. The first is my son - he likes the tiny grape tomatoes because they're sweet and he can pick them himself and pop them into his mouth like candy pretty much whenever he wants. Reason number 2 is my dad. He LOVES a good tomato. The last couple of years I've been growing only the cherry and grape and cherry tomatoes for my son, and salads, but next year I'm going to get some of that concrete reinforcing wire and build the big honkin' tomato cages that will hold up the big heirlooms like the brandywines. Those I'll be growing for my dad.

Yesterday my dad came by and noticed that several (okay a couple dozen) tomatoes had fallen off the vine because I'd been too busy to pick them. So he offered to come buy and "help me out" by picking some. I figured that he just wanted to "help himself" to my tomatoes, but he really did help. After he picked all of the tomatoes off the vines he cut them down and stacked them on the side of the bed. Now he's talking about getting a small bed at the local community garden in our town and he asked me if I'd be willing to give him a hand. Of course I said I would.

Meska asked me what I will do with all my nine pumpkins my son and I grew this year. They're not very big, but...

One is for my son to take to his mother's house (maybe one for her, too, if he wants to give one to her. we'll see.)

Two are for our house - one for me and one for my son

One each for my niece and nephew

The remaining 3 or 4 will probably go to the neighbor's grandkids. I'll let them pick them from the pumpkin patch. My neighbor was telling me that her daughter's husband had tried to grow them, but all the vines died. I guess he has an Agent Orange thumb or something. He planted corn last year - one long row. lol For those who know even less about corn than I do, this is pretty funny. Corn needs to be grown together in multiple rows so that the pollen can fall on it's own and neighboring cornstalks. If you plant it in one long row, the pollen just gets blown away and rarely lands on the silk and you get little or no corn! I forget what my neighbor said he did or didn't do with the pumpkin vines that they died, but he didn't get a single pumpkin either.

If the kids don't want them then I'll probably just cook them. I know they're not the super sweet pumpkins used for pumpkin pie, but if you roast them like an acorn or butternut squash, they're still mighty good. I had bought a few of the real small pumpkins (Jack be Littles ,or something like that) last year for decorations. I didn't cut into them or paint them or anything. And after Halloween I cooked them up - I cut them in half, scooped out the seeds, oiled a cookie sheet and roasted them in a medium oven with a little brown sugar. They got a little caramelized and the aroma was terrific. They came out of the oven hot, sweet and tasty.  I put someething else on them, too , but I forget now what it was.  It was like clove, allspice, nutmeg, or something like that.

I want to come up with a catch phrase to end my blog (no help please, I need to do this on my own.)

How about, "Until next time, keep those hands dirty!"

Nah, too corny. I'll keep trying.