It’s time to turn the calendar page to August; the month of back-to-school sales, heat, humidity, and red ripe tomatoes!
I have the first of my crop lined on my counter waiting to be eaten. As the season progresses I’ll be picking and canning every other day or so.
There will tomatoes covering my counters, overflowing to the table, and piled in boxes.
Then I will pull out my stock pots and canners and replace the tomatoes with jars and jars of homemade spaghetti sauce, ketchup, and salsa.
But all that will come later, this is just the beginning. These first tomatoes are meant to be eaten fresh and enjoyed by palates who are tired of those tasteless ones from the store.
These first few will star in BLT’s and perk up lettuce salads. They will be cut up with peppers and onions into fresh salsa, chopped up and added to spaghetti, and eaten fresh right off the vine while the juice drips down our chins.
Yes, we’ll savor these first of the season tomatoes, forgetting for a moment all the work that they will soon bring!
. You could fill the hopper and just keep hitting the plunger as gravity pulls the cherry into position. What an amazing invention!