The Great Tomato Project

I love tomatoes in just about anything--chili, soup, baked beans, spaghetti sauce, chopped up and tossed with basil and garlic with olive oil for an easy pasta sauce, sun-dried, in cheese spread, in Swiss steak , . . . you get the idea.  But I HATE raw tomatoes.  I've tried, but I just can't do it.  So why, then, do I have six tomato plants in five varieties?  Well, I can make sauce, chop and freeze for winter use, and give them to some neighbors and friends.

It kind of started as a way to clean up the front of the building after last year's flood.  Sucker trees everywhere, dandelions in a yard unaccustomed to them, branches and other debris (from a smoking neighbor and Mary's psycho cat) from the planters and other areas.  After we got it cleaned up, we put some new potting soil into the planters to bring up the soil level.  Then we planted.  And this is what we currently have:

Green peppers, Bush Big Boy tomato, sweet basil, and rosemary. 

The peppers are at the other end of the tomato cage, so you can't see them here

Dill, Biltmore tomato, chives, and parsley.  Again, the dill is  behind the cage.

Baby Cakes cherry tomatoes and a few marigolds.

Roma tomatoes.

Cherokee Purple tomatoes.

Beyond my patio on the other side, I've planted two Regal cucumber vines.  I guess I'll be making another trip to the hardware store for something called a cucumber fence to support the vines and fruit.  I did get a larger cage for the Roma's in the barrel planter, but didn't get it put on yesterday.  I'll do that when I water tonight.  Hopefully this weeks warm weather will really get things popping.  If you look very closely, you can see a couple of little yellow blossoms on the Romas.  Or not--I guess the picture chopped off the tops.  Dang!

Ok, so time to go check the ribs in the crock pot.  The smell is making me wild!  But they won't be done for another 3 hours.  I didn't have any apple juice to put in, so I cut up an apple very thinly to get the flavor.  I really don't plan to eat barbecued apples!  And hopefully we will get a couple of applications in at work so we can get them trained and calling.  Out of the office Thursday and Friday to go do testing to stay on the transplant waiting list  Yay.  Sounds fun, right?  Not.