Green Tomatoes
It is tough to be a tomato in New England.
I am featuring an image today of our 2023 tomato crop. If you look closely you can make out two small, green globes of fruit about the size of a tomatillo. A smaller, marble-sized compatriot is emerging above them. A few blossoms hint at the arrival of more.
Unfortunately, we are nearing the end of August. Last night temperatures fell into the forties. The same is expected tonight. The sun is laboring to rise above the Eastern White Pines and Hemlocks, and in a few short hours, maybe five, it will sink behind the tree line on the opposite side of the field. It is almost noon and only now has bright light begun to bathe the plants.
I have commiserated with my fellow backyard gardeners, all of whom report the same: good lettuces, no problem growing carrots, onions, certain squashes, potatoes have come in okay, but the tomatoes are still on the first lap. They will not make it around before time runs out for growing.
It was the same last year. Except that last year, we had no rain. This year, we had nothing but rain. More than a foot of rain dropped on New Hampshire in the first two weeks of July, on the way to a record of over seventeen inches for the month. By comparison, Florida had slightly over eight inches.
It is tough to be a tomato in New England. When you think about it, the things we are good at growing here live in the water where the climate is fairly predictable (for now). And maybe blueberries. But lobster, scallops, and cod are our champion agricultural products. I could include apples, which seem synonymous with the region, but they have more to do with Canada and New York. Further, there are so many designer apples today that the fruit emits a California vibe. Like avocados.
In the spring, we planted two apple trees, an Empire and a Macoun. Both varieties were developed at Cornell’s agricultural extension in Geneva, New York, the town where I went to college. I had no idea apple development was taking place nearby. Made no difference, except I might have been surprised to learn people in such and such a building were inventing apples and thought, really? Like, for work? But I am delighted to have the specimens we have on the property for the connection they provide, providentially, with those days. The older I get, the happier I am to have markers of the past around me, old friends, or fruits. I am the steamer trunk, plastered in travel stickers.
I will add that something ate the apples of the empire tree. One day last week there were five or six and the next day there were none, save for two small ones left on the ground, not much bigger than golf balls.
I overlooked the sugar maple on our list of champion agricultural products and its gift of maple syrup. Quebec produces more maple syrup than the rest of the world combined. None of it flows this way. It is met at the border by supplies of our own originating from down the street in every direction.
The sap is going to run each year, rain or no rain. It is only a question of how much the trees will surrender to the tap. Longview Forest Products is a significant producer based in our town, three to four hundred gallons a year.
At Town Meetings each March it is the quaint custom to receive the syrup report from Longview’s chieftain. How is the sap running? What can we expect versus last year? Then we break for hotdogs served by the volunteer fire department.
All governing would benefit from standard breaks for hotdogs and syrup reports.
I am not a huge fan of fried green tomatoes, but I will try them again this year. Other things we may do is pickle them or—better idea—make chutney. The plants have been in our garden, getting wet, plugging away under mainly overcast skies since the beginning of June. We will use them, one way or the other. I read you can put green tomatoes with other unripe fruits, such as bananas or apples, and they will ripen together. Who discovers this stuff? People in such and such a building in Geneva, New York? More likely people who grew food for their own survival. They had some green tomatoes, apples that had been knocked off the tree, whatever else. Left them on the counter for a few days and things got better.
Tossed them with some maple syrup. Kept on going.
As shall we.