The Tomato Avalanche — Janet Szabo

I picked tomatoes just before I left last week and told the husband not to worry about checking on them while I was gone. He had enough to do. They were fine, although they definitely needed some attention yesterday. I brought in close to 50 pounds. Some tomatoes were ripe enough to go right into the freezer. The others are spread out on a towel on top of the freezer in the laundry room. I tend not to let my tomatoes ripen completely on the vine for a couple of reasons. One is that ripe tomatoes are too great a temptation for ground squirrels, who will come through and gnaw on half the tomato and leave the other half to rot. The other is that the Cherokee Purple and Indian Stripe varieties are ripe before they turn full red. I pick any that have started to color and bring them in to finish ripening inside. That way, I can check them daily and freeze them at the height of their flavor.

I continue to be amazed at the size of some of these tomatoes.

I wish I could give you my secret for growing award-winning produce, but I have no idea what’s going on. The tomatoes do like that spot in the garden and have done well there before. Growing conditions were excellent this year. And I simply may have lucked out and gotten a batch of seed with superior genetics. I am going to choose one or two of these really big ones and save the seed. I am doing that with the Dirty Girls and it’s a good practice in case seed is scarce next year.

I am going to pull up all the beans today; they are starting to turn yellow and there is no point in leaving them out there. I’ll put them in trays in the greenhouse to finish drying like I did last fall. Lettuce Crop 2.0 looks great and should be ready to transplant outside soon. The husband is eating his way through the watermelon patch and the cantaloupe should be ready to pick soon. I need to pick up a couple of bags of organic carrots at Costco for canning.

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Things have eased up some for the husband, thankfully. I’m borrowing a picture from our friend Lee, who owns a farm down in the valley. One of the husband’s specialities is grain bin foundations and he poured this one for Lee about two weeks ago:

Another contractor friend of ours, Cal, assembled the grain bin and lifted it onto the concrete pad. The husband and Cal have worked together on quite a few of these.

When the husband does grain bin foundations, I have to ask if it’s for an actual grain bin, because some people here are putting up grain bins and turning them into Airbnbs. (I know.) Speaking of Airbnbs, DD#2 found out that the woman who lives in the other half of her house (it’s a duplex) has an Airbnb in the studio basement. The next time I go to Seattle, I can stay right next door to DD#2.

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A few days in the big city is a fun diversion, but I am happy to be back here with the chickens and the vegetables. I get claustrophobic in Seattle. It’s crowded, the streets are narrow, and buildings are tucked into every tiny little nook and cranny. Getting back to the open space of Montana is always a huge relief.

We spent most of our time in Seattle in the outlying areas, but we did drive downtown Monday morning. Susan’s daughter and her family are staying with a friend of theirs while waiting for more permanent housing. The friend has an apartment near the space needle and Susan was going to the apartment to watch the baby. We took 99 into town instead of I-5—that’s a lovely drive, by the way—and I was a bit surprised to see that downtown looks like a ghost town. Normally, that area would be packed with people. It wasn’t. There was very little vehicle traffic. Most people are still working from home. Honestly, it was a bit eerie.

Seattle Fabrics and Pacific Fabrics are still closed to foot traffic. I suspect they will stay that way.

I maintain my view that the majority of people are kind and pleasant and want to get along and live in peace. I find it distressing that the media is working so hard to pit us all against each other—and worse, that people keep falling for that narrative. I am in no way trying to minimize the problems that exist. I am simply noting that creating further division is not the way to fix them.

Do your part. Be a good human today.