I made new tomato cages this past summer from concrete reinforcing mesh.    They are sturdy and others who have made them claim they will be the last cages ever needed.  Time will tell.  The first few cages were very challenging to make, as the wire does not bend easily to form, is springy, is five feet tall and needs to be cut off the 150 ft. roll.  I eventually stopped trying to use wire cutters, and bolt cutters, and settled on using a 90 degree grinder cut off wheel to easily cut the lengths I needed,   my cages are roughly 2 feet in diameter.  I counted the number of 6 inch squares in the metal mesh instead of measuring each of them. 

I am really happy with the cages and will make more in due time.  The one thing that these cages need, is a sturdy support, so that the weight of the tomatoes and any wind does not knock them about.  I used T posts driven in to the ground and attached to each cage. 

Next spring I plan to make a fence around the garden with the cages to deter invasion by my larger four legged neighbors.  The tall border should be an interesting change. When placing the cages, I intend to space them approximately a foot apart, to allow good flow of air between the plants as they mature, access for picking and pruning, and sun light to pass between into the center of the garden.  There will be  strands of  wire or twine connecting the rows  of cages,  and the t-posts will be anchoring the ends of the rows.

Lunch!  I am not sure that there is a better summer lunch than having a fresh juicy vine ripe tomato chunked into a bowl , eaten in the hand like an apple, or sliced onto a hearty slice of bread for a fresh healthy and filling meal.  I like to take my lunch to work and in the fresh tomato season that includes the fresh tomato cut up into bite sized pieces along with other fresh chopped veggies from my garden or one of the local farmers markets. Drizzle with a bit of oil and some balsamic vinegar this is delightful.

Sauce.  My favorite preserving method is to crush my Roma paste type tomatoes, along with plenty of garlic, sweet pepper and onion into a very large kettle and cook the mixture until it is very thick.  The ratios of ingredients are not terribly important to me.  For about a half bushel or five gallon bucket of tomatoes, I add two or three cups each of pepper and onion.  I add three to five heads of garlic.  In some years I have added grated carrots. Once the sauce seems to be  thick enough, I add fresh chopped basil leaves.  I prefer to pressure can the sauce in pint jars for year round garden goodness.

Dried tomatoes.  Here in Michigan,  I don’t like to sun dry my tomatoes becasue our humidity levels can be high in the summer.  I use a home dehydrator to dry the paste style tomatoes into what I have recently started calling ‘tomato bacon’ or ‘tomato jerky’.   The process usually takes about 24 hours in our current dehydrator. The result is a hard tomato strip, that can be used in dinner dishes like pasta or re-hydrated into any warm dishes.  The flavors are bright and  tangy. 

Salsa.   I regularly enjoy eating the summers tomato bounty as salsa with corn chips. My home made salsa is not as sticky or creamy as commercial salsa, but the flavor is right from the garden.    Garlic, onion, sweet pepper join the tomatoes in the cooking pot usually along with a packet of salsa ingredients from Mrs. Wages or Ball brands. 
Click on the picture to order it through Amazon, if your local stores don’t carry them.

Diced Tomato.  We use the crudely chopped chunks of tomatoes in our soups, stews and chili recipes throughout the year.  The easiest method of preserving the summer goodness is to roughly chop the cleaned and cored tomatoes into a large bowl.  Mash them into pint jars, really pushing them down into the jars until they are juicing, then adding citric acid and processing the jars.  To get a little farther along in the preparation of the future meal, I also add onion and pepper crudely chopped to the bowl and mix them with the tomatoes before filling the pint jars.  I have started using citric acid instead of white vinegar to keep the acid level appropriate for safe canning. the result is a thicker product in the jar after processing.  I used Ball Jar Citric Acid.  Click on the picture to order it through Amazon, if you can not find it in your local stores.

New and sixth use of the tomato abundance

Ketchup.  I purchased some of the Mrs.Wages Ketchup mix that was on clearance a few years ago.  This past week I decided to try making the ketchup.  Julie is brand loyal to her off the shelf ketchup , but since I started enjoying balsamic vinegar ketchup, she  suggested that I use balsamic vinegar in place of the plain jane white distilled vinegar that the Mrs. Wages recipe calls for.   The result is delicious.  I have not opened a jar of  the hot water bath preserved ketchup, but tastes of the small amount left after canning make me think this is a good use of shelf space.

Wine is normally considered a grape based product, but why not use the fruit of other vines to create a tasty beverage?  Here is a recipe for making a small batch of tomato wine.

Marty’s Tomato Wine Recipe

1 Gallon recipe

1.       ½ gallon of red ripe tomatoes, wash, cut, mash in bowl, place in mesh bag. Place I crushed campden tablet, bag and juices into a container ( Tupperware bowl with the lid loose on a side) with loose lid overnight.

2.       After 24-36 hours.  Mash juices out of bag into a one gallon jug- the fermenter.

3.       Add 2 lbs sugar, one crushed campden tablet, 1/2 packet of dry wine yeast, the juice from the tomatoes, a sliced lemon and water to fill the jug to the shoulder.  Leave room at the top of the jug for foaming.  Put the airlock- bubbler in the rubber stopper, place on the jug with water or vodka in the bubbler.  Check the bubbler daily to make sure some foam has not clogged it.

4.       After all bubbling has stopped, empty the jug into a clean jug or the container used in step 1 along with a crushed campden tablet.  The goal is to leave as much sediment behind in the fermenter.  Try using a siphon tube to leave more of the sediment in the fermenter. 

5.       If you have more than one fermenter, you can just leave the wine in the clean second fermenter. Otherwise, clean the fermenter jug, rinse very well, and return the wine to the fermenter.

Pouring the wine from one container to the next leaving residue and sediment behind is decanting.  Siphoning the wine from one container to the next leaving the residue and sediment behind is racking.

Wine may be racked or decanted a number of times to aid in clearing the wine. 

Wait 2 months.  Smell and taste the wine after 2 months.  If the taste is acceptable then drink the wine.  Wine may be left in the fermenter jug with the bubbler or a screw top , keep the air out.     If it smells bad, do not give up!  The fermentation of the fruit is not always pleasant smelling.  Off odors often miraculously disappear as the wine ages. Wait a few weeks and check again.

The tomatoes have started arriving.  They are not overrunning us yet, but one ripe fruit  a day and I can see many green orbs are hiding in the plantings.  This year we have planted more than varieties than past years. As I started growing my own transplants from seed.  We have at least 25 plants of just paste tomatoes grown from seed.  I found the seed in a 35mm film canister in the refrigerator this past February. Julie saved the seeds several years ago.  I guess we should take stock of the items is in the fridge more often.  

The photograph above shows a Thorburn's Terra-Cotta fruit that was grown from seed.   This fruit has a deep orange color with green shoulders that are a slight challenge in determining if it is ripe.  The inside jell around the  seeds is green.   The flavor surprised me. I was expecting a sharp unripe flavor, but these fruits are mild and slightly sweet.  The fruits I have picked have been about 2 - 3 inches across, not quite sandwich sized, but very good chopped into a salad.

Garlic that was planted in October of 2016 was ready to be harvested this week.  These plants took up a space of about 10 x 10 feet in the garden.  That space will be made ready to have a crop of Fall lettuce planted.  That corner of the garden was the site of my original compost pile.  The ground is very crumbly and rich.

The battle started quietly. Late May, I was preparing to leave on a business trip.   I would be gone all week. There was no need to purchase my usual lunch supplies.  I mentioned to Julie that the lettuce in the garden looked great and that we would have salad greens the week I returned.  Our normal brown bag lunches included salads. 

On return from the trip, I wandered through the garden. Finally, germination was happening. The plants like tomatoes and peppers planted from starts were perking up and looking good.  The lettuce was gone. Mowed down to the ground!

 Then we saw the mowers and evidence of their presence.  Rabbits, woodchucks and deer.

The first battle engagements were lost to the woodchucks. My lack of shooting skills are to blame. I actually shot one woodchuck that limped off the battle field.  One of the cute little suckers stared at me from the tunnel dug under the barn wall.

The second battle involved sophisticated weaponry in the form of 330 Conibear traps.  Four of them strategically located in the paths dug under the barn walls.

Gardener 7    Woodchucks ?