Well, we're not quite at that stage yet, but we are at the point where we can sing about the anticipation of enjoying the wonderful, glorious, marvelous food!
And, of course,
since the last piece I wrote, it turns out that there is a problem with commercially-available tomatoes (salmonella). Health authorities are diligently trying to track down the source of the bad tomatoes, so now I'm pretty happy that I have my 100 tomato plants :-)
One of my neighbors, who recently started his first garden (and it's a fair sight better-looking than *my* first one!) said, “I started this as a hobby, but it's turning into work!”
Truer words were never spoken on that score...
I have weeded, fertilized, staked, mulched, weeded, fertilized, talked to, talked about, and prayed over these plants ("Oh please, grow for me!!!"), and it appears that all the work (and prayers!) is working.
I'm looking forward to the next step in this process: preservation.
Canning, freezing, and drying... my mouth waters at the thought of vine-ripened vegetables in glass jars, in the freezer, and trying my hand at dried anything - well, let's just say that it's making me hungry.
But I shouldn't count my tomatoes before they're ripe... so, I'm stuck on dreaming about homemade pizza sauce, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste... LOL!!