New Tomato Recipes from the NYT

Really?

We're the only place in the country that hasn't had scorching heat lately, I thought. I would have guessed in Florida you'd have tomatoes we can only dream about here.

Clearly I'm totally wrong on my supposition. Why can't you get good tomatoes there?

 
Because Florida is the land of old people with no taste buds who love the heat.

We grow tasteless strawberries and tomatoes. All the oranges and grapefruit we grow are turned into juice. The only fresh citrus in the stores are from California and Chili.

If you try to grow your own tomatoes the heat will split the flesh.

However, we grow gigantic zucchini and plenty of them (I find zucchini boring)

I am a bitter old man who is currently sweating in front of my laptop and hating the heat. Can you tell?

 
Tomatoes are tough to do here too

You have to pray for no early April freeze and then pray again that it doesn't start hitting the 90's in May before they have set some fruit because they won't set any more after that. The valley does grow fabulous citrus and cantaloupe though.

 
Ooh, send some cantaloupes here (NC). The ones we're getting from who knows where really suck.

 
Marilyn I was totally stunned when I spent a week in Florida...

at a condo, went to the markets thinking about all the glorious produce I was going to buy in the 70 degree December weather...and???

It was all trash. I couldn't believe it?

Old, withered, dried up, unripe. WTH?

How can this be?

 
I planted 30 tomato plants...

heirlooms, hybrids, I had it all. I thought, surely the local fauna could leave me some of the tomatoes.

No. They ate the tomato plants. They were staked and tied up, then, lo, a trunk out of the ground with the withering tops tied to the top of the stake, and 30 devoured tomato plants with all of the green tomatoes hanging gloriously from them.

The culprit is a colony of big fat ground hogs who have started homesteading under the solarium. The boys went outside and nearly tangled with him. I was so relieved he got under the fence before they caught him. He is bigger than they are. I think the boys would have won the battle, but at what price, how much blood, and how many trips to the vet?

I have set a trap baited with a big red apple and a trail of sweet cherries into the trap. Hopefully I will be driving the groundhog family off to a local park soon.

Can I just grow some tomatoes in my garden???

 
Hey Richard, be careful with your pups around that groundhog.

Our Golden Retriever surprised a ground hog in our garden a few years ago. They tangled and the ground hog went for her jugular but grabbed the kerchief my dog was wearing instead. My son ran to help and literally hit the ground hog off of her with a baseball bat. The vet told us if the ground hog had gotten to her neck, she would have been gone before we could do anything.
Shook us all up. Now if we see ground hogs in the yard, we have them taken care of (I have some hunting neighbors) Keeps all our pups safer.

 
Miss Lola I am so well aware of that...

Thank you so much for your warning! I do know how bad it would be if they all tangled.

I opened the door of the solarium and didn't see Mr. FAT Groundhog sunning himself on the patio. I knew it would be bad if they caught up with him, hence the relieve that he got his fat butt under the fence.

They're totally onto him, and stalking his home, under the solarium.

And believe me, after I lost Siegfried last year, and nearly 10K of vet bills, I was ready to squirt gasoline in the hole and light his @$$.

But! I am humane and I will trap him and pack him off to a not so near park to be released.

Just hoping we can keep Dachshunds and Mr. Groundhog separated.

And yes, if there was an encounter, I would be there with whatever it took to kill the damned thing.

My Doggy friends call me crazy man. I was at my brother's house in the country when a pack of the local dogs showed up to tangle with my docile little dachshunds who were minding their own business and having a great day in the country. I tore after them, grabbing a branch from a tree and chased them down the road screaming, cursing, yelling, and generally acting like a crazy lunatic. No one messes with my boys. You have to answer to the big one first.

 
We had a guard in Swaziland who patrolled the yard with our trusty

Rottie, "Osa". One day he was not patrolling as usual, but walking ever so slowly and deliberately, with his eyes locked to the ground. Osa was puzzled, as was I. I went outside and asked David, "what in the world are you looking at?" Just as I spoke he dropped to the ground with lightening speed and came up with a groundhog that was about the size of a child's small hand. He looked at me and said with great sincerity, "Mother (that's what he called me), what am I to do with this creature?" I replied, just as sincerely, "Why, David, you must carry him to the home of your worst enemy." He laughed and put the little guy in his pocket. All the rest of the day I could see him occasionally pat his pocket chuckling.

 
Yep. Just what I felt like. This summer tomatoes are slow where we both live and it would be

better if they were. I wouldn't change anything but will say that I was light on the basil and was glad of it.

thank you again. It's in my file as well.

(good bread important as it was my entire dinner)

I'm going to be brave and try the leftover as a tuna melt. YIKES, maybe for breakfast!!

 
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