Oh friends. Sad days. In my fridge, I have one last vine ripened tomato from Albert. Just the one. I'd bought 8 or 9 the last time I stopped in. I can't remember because he was telling me that this was the last of the produce for the summer and that he was closing up shop. I was telling him that I really was grateful for the produce over the summer. I bought A LOT from him, and he was always grateful for the business. I tried to tell him that there was no other place that could match him for price OR quality. I was grateful for him. And while we were thanking each other, he was saying, "Here...you might as well take these and, this one has a blemish..." tossing in apples and tomatoes and onions.
It's like that when I stop in there. I go for one thing specifically, and walk out of there with a more than I ever intended to buy, but it is all good stuff.
Anyways, so there it is. Every morning since tomatoes started coming on, I've been having a thick slice of tomato on toast, with a smear of mayonnaise and a hearty sprinkling of fresh ground black pepper. Every morning.
Now I'm down to the last of it. I can get tomatoes from Aldi's, of course, but it is not the same. They are a whole different texture, not allowed to ripen on the vine. They are not the tomatoes of summer.
I figure that I've got 3, maybe 4 days out of this tomato, then I'll just have to admit the truth. Summer is over.
I think that we had a hard frost Thursday morning down at the new house (it was fine in town). But my basil is black. Presto, no pesto. My morning glories are wilted and shriveled and no longer glorious. Looks like they're done for the season too.
We have three days coming up, with the highs only reaching the 40s and the lows in the 30s. They are rainy days, all of them, and there may be some snow.
I miss summer already.
Winter arrived for you so quickly, it seems. Pesto is a bit topical for me today. I like the sound of your breakfast. After cereal I might try that myself, except the tomato won't be very good either.
ReplyDeleteI was just mourning the end of summer too! Close to frost expected this week, so I’ll be harvesting the last of my tomatoes and peppers, plus the celery… I agree with you- there’s nothing like the summer tomatoes!🥰As for pesto- I still have tons in the freezer, so I don’t know why I always plant so much basil!?🤷♀️😅
ReplyDeleteOoops- Rigmor commenting above!
ReplyDeleteWe have maybe 6-8 smallish tomatoes on our vine. Kind of orange and I am letting them sit until Wednesday because THURSDAY we are in for a cold cold night. My pepper plant could not look healthier but since the peppers are the exact same color as the profuse leaves, I will probably have to pull the whole thing out to find them. And I bet there are a lot, lol. That those peppers have been crazy. I have a freezer full.
ReplyDeleteThere is something about garden tomatoes. As for weather, we are getting just about the same. I think there is better weather coming later in the week. We don’t have the furnace on yet; I wonder if we’ll make it through to the better weather without succumbing.
ReplyDeleteDarn. That was me. /AC
ReplyDeleteOur weather is just about perfect. After two hurricanes in less than three weeks we are happy with just plain sunshine. We had over 15 inches of rain in a 12-hour period, so the ground is very wet. Hard to think of winter being there already but I guess it is that time. There are large tomato fields here and four packing houses shipping them out of Ruskin but you are right they are picked green. The imperfect ones are fed to cattle.
ReplyDeleteI'm still getting tomatoes out of the garden. I also brought in some green tomatoes so I could fry some one more time. Supposed to be under 40 tonight.
ReplyDeleteBack when I had a garden I had a tomato sammie for lunch every day. Every day.
ReplyDeleteI grieve for tomatoes like the ones you get from Albert, those that come from the grocery store are not worth eating.
ReplyDelete