Gardening

-TheReview Wednesday, October 16,1991 — A22

Lots of uses for those late tomatoes

By the time you are reading this
(all things going as planned)
“himself’s” plane should be pre-
paring to land in Vancouver, and I
shall be there, wearing my very
best, and a big smile, waiting for
him.

I had great plans for all sorts of
things I would accomplish in his
absence, but most of them never

made it off the ground, let alone

flew! I was going to lose 10
pounds, for one thing, but no such
luck.

The other moming after a bath
to remove any lingering vestige of
soil, and making sure I had dried
myself thoroughly (water weighs a
ton, y know!) I stepped on the
scales. What a thrill...I had LOST
the 10 pounds!

Then I put on my glasses (I had
taken them off because they must
weigh at least an ounce!) and
stepped back on, and had a closer
look. I should have accepted the
FIRST reading! I weigh exactly
the same amount as I did when
“himself” left!

Oh, well, “them’s the breaks,”
as they say on T.V., and I console
myself that he might not have even
recognized me if I had got all slim
and svelt and alluring. I promise,
though, to scrape the garden soil
from under my nails, wipe the ditt
from the soles of my shoes, and
put on some lipstick...no point in
being TOO casual!

I thought today that we might
talk for a minute about what one
can do with all these blamed
tomatoes that have taken forever to
ripen, but are not all ready to go.

Ihave made a batch of uncooked
tomato relish, and have been mak-
ing juice until the freezer is bulg-
ing, but how much tomato juice
can we possibly drink over a year?

You probably know that tomat-
oes may be frozen whole, just as
they come out of the garden, for
use in Stews and soup, or they may
be bottled... You could also make
green tomato mince-meat
(Bunty’s good recipe, on
request)...fry them with bacon for
a breakfast fit for a king, make a
relish called picalilli or, using ripe
tomatoes make the one called,
simply, “uncooked tomato relish”
which not only looks splendid, but
~ tastes fantastic.

The latter is the one I have just
finished making, and it does look
quite beautiful, especially if you
are a pickle fan! (again, recipe on
request.)

If you have any interesting ideas,
maybe you'd like to share them?
I’m sure there will still be tomat-
oes around for weeks yet!

Birds are suddenly all about in
the garden (almost certainly with

their bags packed, and all facing
South!) Some of them though, will
be staying on, especially if we
have something interesting to offer
them, in the way of food.

I made a trip in to Borden’s
Merchantile, on Borden Street
Gust past the intersection of Qua-
dra and MacKenzie) to buy seeds
to make up what I hope will be an

attractive mix for the little dar-
lings.

I got red millet, flax, broken
corn (scratch), finch mix, and
black sunflower seeds. To this will
be added some oatmeal, and prob-
ably some peanut butter, plus
melted fat (bacon, perhaps?)

This is normally “himself’s”’
department, so maybe I should
wait for him to appear. The only
difficulty is that the birds are here
NOW, and this is the time they are
setting up a feeding pattern for
the...er...the coming season (I
refuse to say THAT darned word
that begins with a “W”!)

Please do keep those hoses run-
ning. It is much too dry, and this is
especially hard on young trees and
shrubs, so do keep them watered

from now until it begins to rain in
eamest.

Several questions and answers
that might be useful to others:
Would it be worthwhile to transpl-
ant raspberry canes growing where
they don’t belong, to where their
relatives are planted? If the answer
is “Yes,” when might this be
done?

I would save them, myself. They
must be hardy fellows or they
wouldn’t be growing where they
are. Move them when the leaves
have fallen off, pruning all canes
that fruited this year, right back to
soil level, and shortening the rest
to about four feet, to keep these
from banging about in the wind.

Mrs. Fallot called to tell me that
she had vanquished what we had

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decided must be “scale” on the
leaves of her umbrella plant. She
used a cotton swab moistened with
mineral oil, and made sure she
reached every bit of her plant
(both sides of all leaves, paying
special attention to that awkward-
to-reach place where each leaf
Joins the stem, and treating the
trunk as well).

She also offered a hint on how to
nid your garden of horsetail. This,
she admits, is a lot of work, but by
taking her small shovel, and dig-
ging deeply to remove every stalk,
she has weakened the weed. Now,
only occasionally, does a thin
shoot appear. She did this digging
every three or four days from May
until the beginning of October, but
said she almost enjoyed the chal-
lenge! (1 think I might have
moved!)

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