We both love growing things. We take a lot of pride in raising fresh vegetables. Heirloom tomatoes, all sorts of peppers and tomatillos are among our favorites. I am also proud of Shelly’s cooking and the way she gets inspired by things we grow.
When we sold our house in August, we had a couple of dozen pots filled with productive plants. They were packed in tight. Our yard wasn’t much bigger than 2500 sq. feet and there was a house in the middle of it taking up important garden space. Still, we were picking tomatoes and peppers daily and working them into our menu.
One of the things the buyer asked for in the negotiations was for us to leave the yard exactly as it was including all the potted plants. On the one hand, that was a big ask, we wouldn’t reap the fall harvest of all of those plants. On the other hand, it was gratifying that someone else loved what we had made back there.
So we were leaving a yard that we loved and moving on toward making a new space we can enjoy just as much, with more room and more opportunities to grow things we love.
Next year, unlike this year, we will be tending our plants all the way to the end of the season. This is where home-grown vegetables can become a crisis. With all the extra space, it will be tempting to create hundreds of pounds of excess tomatoes.
The current thinking is that maybe about the 15th of September, we might start canning an avalanche of salsa, enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, etc. It sounds like a lot of work, but it also might be a great way to maximize the benefits of the new garden.