Thanks to our lacklustre summer, the tomatoes which got a flying start have been left on the vines… waiting. Waiting for the sun which didn’t get hot. The shots are the top are of Adam’s roma tomato vine. It went mad, clearing the cage, the fence, to reach the ground over at the neighbour’s. You can see them there in the middle, endlessly dotting the vine, become as one with the cage itself (see the bottom).
Now, because I hate waste, I asked my gardener friend what I should do. She suggested picking them and hanging them up to ripen on their own. This wasn’t an option for many due to the age of some vines, plus they were dropping off, but for those I could, I did. Look at them:
They’re quite gorgeous, really. Natures adornments.
Those aren’t hanging I’ve got indoors:
However I’m getting the feeling that no matter how much positioning in the sun they get, I’ll need to use them before they start to go bad. Liss from Frills in the Hills suggested this recipe for green tomato chutney (thank you!) while I need to go and have a conversation with myself to determine whether I’m game to try this recipe for green tomato cake.
I will add – for your amusement – the story that in pulling out all the bushes I found a dead rat underneath the thick tangles. It was one that had been baited, so there was not much left apart from a rat-shaped husk, with the yellow eyes and the paws hooked. I let out a yell, dropped everything, and ran inside. Long time readers will know of our struggles with our local rat population (ie. they love our house vs. we hate them with the energy of a thousand fires) but what’s more than that is I have deep, deep aversion to them, stemming back to my grandparent’s farm, and in the late afternoon light I’d see their silhouettes projected as they scurried along the beams in the barn. Or because of Orwell’s 1984.
But my grandmother will be pleased to hear I sucked it up, went back out, and shoveled it into the bin. Boo-yeah.
