85 Day Tomato

 

We are having a very good tomato year. The plants are eight feet tall and loaded with fruit. The part of me that loves putting by food for the winter is thrilled. The part that worries about climate change is not.

When I first started growing food in our backyard, thirty years ago, I searched for tomatoes that were varied in color and shape, but also ripened early.  I wanted the 70 day tomato, not the 85. I had too many stay green on the vines my first few years and green tomato pie did not sit well in our stomachs.. OSU had been breeding such fruits for years, and I planted those seeds and harvested the fruit in late August.  I often wrapped the cages or placed milk jugs over the plants for a few weeks for extra warmth. I  did not start the irrigation until July because there was still rain and drizzle until the fourth. The season has changed.  
 

These days, my tomato plants are growing rapidly in May and June, even though I start the seeds a month later. I plant them out in late April most years without covering them up. The irrigation is starting in late May or early June, a full month early. The nights are warm, and then hot, by the Summer Solstice. This year, I planted several 85 day plants—ok, I ordered three different large fruited varieties without thinking it through late February because who doesn’t want a two pound ripe tomato in February?—and they are thriving. The plants have been over Mark’s head for a month. The fruit set early and it is rolling in beautifully ripe and colored this week. Early.

Our world is changing. Today, all of the fields are dry and golden, the hawthorn berries are ripe, and the air smells of the distant forest fires, even though the sky is clear. This may be the year of the perfect 85 day tomato here in the Willamette Valley, but other areas are losing their ability to grow our food. Where are we headed?

 

Fruit Season

 

                It is the season of fruit. Starting in late June, we are awash in fresh fruit and berries: strawberries, raspberries, cherries, gooseberries, blueberries, currants all fill the bowls in our house, week following week. We pick blueberries by the pound, eating them by handfuls after lunch. By mid-July, we have the larger fruit. First, the plums in the front yard ripen over several weeks, east branches to west branches. Then peaches cross our paths, although we do not have a tree. Apples thump on the roof of the van at midnight, echoing into the backyard. The fig trees branches are so loaded down that they reach the ground, and the persimmons and jujubes are slowing ripening to finish the season. Last year, we planted a pear tree; this year we added an Italian plum and cherry, as well as two columnar apples.  We live in an orchard.

                A month ago, I cleaned out the shelves in the basement that hold our canned goods. I threw out the old zucchini relish (really, we don’t eat it) and a batch of pickles that was too salty, and then evaluated what I needed to process this year. NO apple butter. Yes to rhubarb marmalade. Every few days  throughout August, I dry or jam or press our fruit—including tomatoes. Using the steam canner, which lets me process on batch of crock-pot tomato sauce at a time, I slowly fill the shelves downstairs. We will eat this bounty all winter long.

 

 

Lammas

 

Lammas—the season of early harvest—is perhaps a contraction of the words loaf mass because all of the early grains are ripening now in the fields. This is when we see if our efforts to raise food to hold us through the winter have been successful. Of course, some years are apple years and others are cabbage, but the hope is that it will all balance out and we will come through the dark times in good health. It is also the time to soak in the light and warmth of summer sun against the dark and damp winters. We are striving to do both.

In the garden, I am prepping for the canning season. I purged the shelves of ancient attempts to preserve zucchini (really, we do not eat relish) and some dried herbs and I will vacuum the shelves and reorder what is left this week. While purging, I made the season’s list: how much of everything do we need with a bit extra thrown in just in case it is not a pear year in 2027.  I’ve already stocked up on lids; after the pandemic surge in canning, when I had lids shipped from Tennessee and they traveled back and forth on UPS three times before arriving here, I buy lids in April. We picked blueberries last week and dried several jars worth on Friday. Today, the drier is humming with local peaches, which are like gold in the Willamette Valley. Tangled in vines, the winter squashes are putting on weight and I count them in the mornings. Apples are falling from my trees and I spend half an hour most days with the picker and ladder, then sort the fruit into eating and juicing piles. All of the potatoes are in, tucked under the cellar stairs in their paper bags and crates.

At Finley Wildlife Refuge, ten miles south of town, the season is shifting as well. The hay is piled high in bales, waiting to come in. The wild fields are golden; thee snowberry and blackberry bushes are covered in berries; the vernal pools are all dried and full of rushes and pennyroyal. The birds gather where this is water and the woodpeckers have loud conversations about where each one is storing acorns in the big dead oak for the winter. As always, once you leave the gravel road and parking lot, there is no one on the trails, which are being overtaken by summer brambles. We ate lunch on the new pavilion that looks out over the valley and swatted away the yellow jackets that came to see if we had tuna fish for lunch. We did not.

Last night, we had a fire and s’mores for desert, rather than a pie. As always, I pulled a tarot card to guide me on the next six weeks. The Hermit. Turn inward, it read, focus on what is true and real, not the mad getting and spending of the world. Be quiet. It is harvest time before moving forward again.