I, once again, have realized that I have not posted anything for a while.  Now it is officially winter, with snow blanketing the ground and temperatures below freezing.

Last time I posted, I had just planted my two gardens, one in town in the back yard and one at a friend's farm just outside of town.  They both proved to be quite productive. Very productive.  Ok.  Exceptionally productive.  Especially the tomatoes.  It was an excellent year for tomatoes - a really excellent year for them.  I thought because it was such a cool spring that it wouldn't be a great year for them so I threw in a few extra tomatoes.  Ok, ok.  I threw in a couple extra dozen tomatoes.  There. I admit it. I goofed. I have never seen so many tomatoes in my life as when they started to ripen.  They were truly wonderful.  Yellow, black, green striped, orange, red, HUGE, small and all tasting like summer.

I grow heritage tomatoes.  I love how many varieties and how flavourful they all are. I think I grew 11 different varieties this year.  I don't think I could go back to growing the hybrid tomatoes...they really don't have the wonderful flavour that the heritage tomatoes have.  I also don't think I have ever canned, stewed, eaten or frozen so many tomatoes before.  Nor have I ever given away so many either.

The biggest surprise I had was with the Sara Black tomatoes.  I get about 3-4 hours of sunlight on my garden in the back yard during the summer as we live in a mature neighbourhood.  The Sara Blacks grow to be a little larger than tennis ball size, in town anyway.  However, given an abundance of sunshine at the farm garden they turned out to be HUGE!  They averaged about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds each and each plant was very prolific! Should I say exceptionally prolific?  I was surprised and delighted!  Then horrified to realize that all the tomatoes that grew tennis ball size were winding up huge and very prolific and I would have to do something with them!

Somehow, I think I will cut back on the number of tomato plants next year.  Over 350 pounds of tomatoes is just way, way too many tomatoes. 

Did I mention that it was a good year for the garden? Dozens of pumpkins, zucchini, hot peppers, massive celery....(truly massive - 3 ft tall and about a foot across! Delicious!)