A Northern Californian Summer Garden

The beauty of the first big harvest (even if it comes at least a month late due to weird 2011 weather!):

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Even in a bad year, home-grown heirloom tomatoes are overwhelming in September:

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Tomatoes are my favorite food, so many of my Summer meals look like this:

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And when the harvests start to decline, it isn’t even all that sad:

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Eventually, the summer garden plants need to be removed to make way for the winter garden. Ideally, I get a chance to do it before the first frost when there are still green tomatoes. This year, the last harvest of the summer was the week before Thanksgiving.

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This is what happens when a Southerner marries a Californian with a garden (fried green tomatoes aren’t a side, they’re the main attraction in a dinner salad!).

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And, of course, I pickled most of the green tomatoes for later enjoyment.

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Last night, December 1st, we ate the very last of the ripe tomatoes from the Summer garden (stored in the fridge after the last harvest).

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And now, it’s nothing but leafy greens, brassicas, and making our way through the winter squash ’til next summer.

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