Tomatoes!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

This may be the last week for a lot of us to get our mitts on fresh local tomatoes, and I for one plan to do just that!  Over the past couple months, I’ve supplemented my own garden and Blooming Glen Farm CSA tomatoes with those from several places around town. 

Anyone who’s canned large quantities of produce knows that it’s so much better with a buddy.  My canning partner this year has been my mom, and together we estimate that we’ve processed about 175 pounds of tomatoes since mid-August.  Early in the season, we canned a bushel of mixed tomatoes from Hideaway Gardens in Harleysville.  Farmers Matt and Lauren Harrington (Lauren is a former contributor to Farm to Philly) hand-picked a lovely selection for us, which you can see above.  For several weeks over the summer, Blooming Glen Farm offered CSA members a great deal 20-pound boxes of San Marzano plum tomatoes, so I snatched up two of those for some amazing salsa.  And just last week, Ray’s Greenhouse had huge baskets of tomatoes for sale at the Indian Valley Farmers Market; we bought about 55 pounds of them and turned them into 14 quarts of sauce.

It seems unlikely, but all of this doesn’t seem to be enough, and I find myself wanting more!  That’s not wrong, is it?