Last Call for Tomatoes

I realized that I have not given the final update on our upside-down tomato experiment this year.

And knowing that so many of you have waited with bated breath to hear the final results, I'm surprised I haven't received any emails demanding a final report.

However, my assumption that hordes of you are on the edge of your ergonomically-designed computer chairs goes unchecked. I know it is just courteous reserve that muzzles you from requesting a wrap-up to this year's tomato season. So, before the anticipation results in some sort of nasty hernia, here it is.

For providing a mass of tomatoes so great that we're left wondering how they will all fit in our freezer, the technique worked quite well. Sure, there were a few structural issues (especially with the 5-gallon buckets--see earlier post), but on the whole it worked. Tomatoes seem to enjoy growing upside-down at least as much as they do growing downside-down, and they bear much fruit. Any tomatoes we lost this year were due more to early frosts and late plantings as to finicky preferences for gravity.

I did not get a summary photo of the plants, hanging with full ripe tomatoes (and green ones in the wings) like a vineyard of love-apples waiting to burst. So this one has to do. Here is the garden, after today's first snow of the year, with tomato-trees bare of their lovely dangling branches.

The buckets I overturned on the spent garden beds, to be turned and mixed with manure next year.

And here is the crown and joy of our efforts: the beginning of homemade tomato soup in the crockpot (to which cream and basil will be added before blending). As you can see, the sweet red of juliette and roma tomatoes did come to our table from the upside-down tomato project. May the Author of All Tomatoes be praised!

For next year, I have some structural and architectural adjustments to make; then we look forward to even greater tomato projects and more marinara, basil bisque, and caprese!

~emrys