Week 21, Season 2017-18; Peak Tomato

We celebrated Earth Day this last week with a farm clean up.  We gathered about 60 lbs of trash from the road and fields, mostly plastic trash.  Thank you to the boundless energy of the Steed family.  

While picking tomatoes this week the thought of peak tomato occurred to me.  Similar to the concept of peak oil.  We have reached peak tomato! The season is winding down and the crops are starting to show it.  We have reached the point in the tomato crop where maximum yield has occurred and now we are on the decline.  We have had a great tomato season with the varieties, ‘Celebrity,’ ‘Juliet,’ and ‘Charger.’  My peppers are doing very well and we have not reached “peak pepper” yet.

We are picking our potatoes and have had extremely tasty strawberry onions this year. 

Our corn plants are looking beautiful and I hope they can finish out strong.  They look like they will pick on our last week of the season. I am trying a new variety this year and it looks like we might get two ears per plant.  I can’t wait!

Around our house I have been watching collard greens in the crisper getting less and less crisp over a few weeks.  Jenn is reluctant to cook them as I am usually the only one who eats them.  So they hang out in the crisper until they are ready for composting.  This time I rescued them and tried something completely different.  Here is a recipe that I came up with.

In a deep frying pan, sauté a couple cloves in olive oil and then chop about a cup and a half of tomatoes and let them saute with the garlic.  While the garlic and tomatoes sauté, chop the collard greens and add them to the pan.  I add a little water at this point and create a steam with the lid.    You can add some pepper and salt or your favorite spices.  After the collards start to turn dark green turn the pan to a simmer and let it cook with lid on for about twenty or thirty minutes until tender.  Enjoy!  I even had some of the kids saying how good this was.  Now I look forward to seeing more collards in our crisper.

Here are a few pictures from the farm.

Collards, tomatoes, garlic, yum!

Tassels emerging

Guardian of the Corn