We already knew it’s one of the worst summers in Seattle history. And it’s just kept raining since we wrote that, right into today, the first full day of fall.
Over the weekend weatherman Cliff Mass wrote: “Over the past 4 days SeaTac has recorded 3.2 inches of rain, normal for the entire month is 1.7 inches.”
So we knew. But we really weren’t ready for what’s happened with our tomatoes.
Some parts of town seem to have tomatoes. Our sister site My Wallingford posted this on Wednesday and invited people to the Wallingford Community Kitchen program: “Tomatoes, Tomatoes & More Tomatoes!” Maple Leaf is a lot higher and cooler than areas like Wallingford or Ballard. And we’re betting we have a lot fewer tomatoes, tomatoes and tomatoes.
Our news partner The Seattle Times published a piece last week on what to do with green tomatoes.
Who in Maple Leaf has successfully grown and enjoyed more than a handful of tomatoes this year? Tell us your stories. Send us your pictures. Cheer us up!
Here’s a start: We found this fine plant this week in Maple Leaf. We’re withholding the location, though. It’s far too close to the sidewalk, where hungry fingers could pick them off!
My hint for you all is to only grow cherry tomatoes. They finish well in even the worst summers. Also, diversify, grow berries, and herbs.
I live in Maple Leaf and just harvested over 3 1/2 pounds of heirloom chocolate cherry tomatoes on Sunday. I’ve also gotten several pounds of my heirloom Stupice tomatoes, the first one on father’s day. A cloche/hoop house is the way to go. 🙂 Check them out: seattleseedling.com
My Brandywine plant is the most spectacular experience I’ve had with tomatoes and it looks like I will get 3 giant ripe ones before the weather kills the plant. The cherry tomatoes were amazing too. I sure hope the weather next year is better. This plot I have the plants in is a new one that didn’t get any ammendments this year, only some organic spike fertilizer. They will be back here next year to try again. This weekend will be fried green tomato mania.
I just built a PVC and plastic “greenhouse” around our garden box in hopes the tomatoes will ripen. We probably have ten pounds of green tomatoes on the vine, and our cherry tomato plant has 50 flowers that are just sitting there. The green house cost about $15 in material at Ace.
We had about 1 tomato become somewhat red and ripe, strangely early on, but only in the past few weeks did we get a large amount of reasonably sized (albeit entirely green) tomatoes. And if you can believe it, they are from our “As-Seen-On-TV” style TopsyTurvey knockoff. The greenies easy enough to ripen in your house, though. Literally just set them on your counter until they turn red. Never thought it was that easy, but it is.
We had a few more failed (or at least somewhat still hopeful) crops in our yard: some corn is still growing, but not quite there; there are some squash flowering and growing, though they will be the smallest squash I’ve ever seen when done; early on we had some extremely small strawberries, but the local fauna (ahem, crows) decided they were too nice to leave alone. We had better luck with our 5×5 plot of shady dirt at our old apartment last year!
Last week I also lamented on the Maple Leaf Ace Facebook page about this same topic. I’m not sure how I am gong to get thru the winter without my dried tomatoes (that I throw into EVERYTHING – sob). Here is the link to some preserving recipes I found: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/maple-leaf-ace-hardware/so-what-to-do-with-all-the-green-tomatoes/436397476377
Pick those suckas up and FRY ’em!