goaltending

With the last batch of crushed tomatoes in the canner as I write, I have just about met my goals for tomato products for the year. (I am too superstitious to actually count them until the last jar seals though!)  Which is pretty good considering my plants have been limping along for the last month.

We have cut way back on the plain canned tomatoes after ramping up sauce production--that's mostly what I used them for in the past.  This year we planted an extra plum tomato just for drying, and that quantity has gone way up.  We'll see if we use them all, but we felt stingy with them last year.  Dried tomato pesto was a big hit (and uses a lot of them), and I'd like to throw them into breads a lot more too.  And if our winter greens work out, they'll be a nice addition for salads too. 

There's a bit more fruit ripening out there, and though there's a race to the final collapse of my plants and/or the first freeze in about a month, we'll be eating fresh toms for a few more weeks.  I plan to roast and sauce the rest of them, and do another batch of soup.  Plus we're eating a LOT, nothing like the last few brandywines to inspire some great meals.

And speaking of goalkeeping, I have put off the greenhouse for one more winter (sigh).  The kit is awesome, but my chosen location sucked.  I think I'm spatially challenged--you know the person who always grabs the wrong-sized container for leftovers?  That's me.  So despite over-thinking the entire project for months, when we did a dry-fit of the hoops it just was all wrong for the space. 

We have a better spot in mind, but it needs some development which can't get done until next spring.  However, that didn't stop me from planting a ton of hardy greens and winter crops.  I will use row cover, low hoops, etc instead.  It's actually working out well as I am not limited by the greenhouse footprint, and I have seeded all over the place. So I'm still working toward my goals, just a little differently than expected this fall.