An Abundance of Tomatoes, Alhamdulillah

Let's get the truth out first. During the heatwave, under the boiling sun, we reached a point where we thought, is there any point even watering? No tomatoes in sight. No flowers. Just a tiring time watering, watering and watering more. This wasn't even a daily watering. It just felt like a lot of work for zero results.

However, tomato plants are such that, suddenly, the fruits start piling up, to the extent that people become fed up and give them away [insert our harvest share scheme here].

One reason people don't want them anymore is they don't have extra freezers at home (you'd be surprised, some people have three or four). Another, is because they don't know how to can  tomatoes.

Even if you cook for a big family, there's only so much you can use, and at the expense of sounding ungrateful, yes, unfortunately people get fed up. This isn't the reaction we need in a time where the cost of living is soaring up, supermarkets are putting any high price on their products and for some of these items, we have no choice but to pay, so having an abundance of tomatoes isn't such a bad thing. We just need to know what to do with them.

Today, we headed to one of the homes which houses our community freezer. We helped blitz the tomatoes to freeze them. Maybe a bit too much, as one of the blenders cracked (is this actually money saving at this rate?). What we can say, is that getting together, doing something for the bigger cause (these tomatoes will be used for community meals, most likely Indian and Italian food, yum), really helps tackle these winter blues people start getting at this time of year. 

Knowledge equals empowerment which in turn benefits us in so many ways. 

Instead of throwing the tomato plants in the compost bin (with fully ripe tomatoes), why not pass them on to others? It's all about community spirit, and so many would love to receive local, home grown, organic produce.

What will you do with yours?