Garden Redux

So we're starting to get the zucchini invasion under control, primarily through strict discipline in visiting it regularly and nipping the new fruits in the bud (literally). But the tomatoes are threatening to open a second front any second, and with our wet weather this summer, they have the resources for it.

We planted only 6 tomato plants this year, and we pushed the last frost date boundary a bit when we planted them, without using wall-o-waters, too. By rights, we should have been punished with stunted plants struggling just to stay alive, not to speak of producing fruit. Instead, our tomato plants resemble an impenetrable equatorial jungle. They're as tall as I am (and I'm NOT short), and have grown so much horizontally that they're intertwined. They'd make a great hedge.

Now, if I remember correctly, the productive gardener is supposed to pinch off bits of tomato plants to force them to flower and set fruit. Fail to pinch, and you only get a few tomatoes, or so I've read. We haven't touched these plants, except to move them out of the way while we were picking zucchini. So, of course, they're overburdened with fruit - go figure. The individual tomatoes are packed so tightly that picking one ripe one has dislodged some of the green ones. They look like grapes in there.

My daughter dealt with the sudden abundance of sugar snap peas for us - over the course of about two weeks, she ate all of them as snacks. I'm counting on her to do her part when the cherry tomatoes start ripening. The rest of them we can peel, pulverize in the blender, and freeze for use in spaghetti sauce and soup this winter, so at least they won't go to waste. And tomatoes are far more popular than zucchini - we can probably offer them to neighbors openly, instead of leaving them on the front step in the dark of night.

As for the zucchini, we dealt with some of the larger ones by shredding and freezing them in two-cup batches, so we can have zucchini bread during the winter. Well, maybe - I don't know how well zucchini freezes. I'll post an update after we thaw some out the first time.