Green tomatoes in June fill me with sunny optimism. I can almost taste the luscious Caprese salads I'm going to be making soon.
Green tomatoes in September are a little depressing -- especially this year, when there were so few of the ripe ones to enjoy.
I'll admit I thought other gardeners were being a bit alarmist earlier in the season, when they started kvetching about hard green tomatoes in late July. I'd already harvested a couple of nice big red ones from my own vines, and was optimstic that the tomatoes would come -- just a bit later than usual.
But those two early tomatoes were the ONLY full-size ones I produced this year -- on three plants! My cherry tomatoes were surprisingly prolific, but yields for the bigger plants were just plain pathetic.
There are now about half a dozen tiny, hard green tomatoes on my sparse, scraggly vines, and I know they're never going to ripen. No homegrown Caprese salads this year.
My fellow Greengirl Mary Jane Smetanka wrote last month about the possible reasons for this year's tomato weirdness. (www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/126895018.html). Basically, it was too cold, until it was too hot.
Whatever. Now it's just too late. Better luck next year.
How were YOUR yields this year? Did you harvest your usual number of tomatoes, or was it a bad year in your garden too?
