I have not so fond memories of going to my grandma’s to help with her garden. We would pick & snap TONS of green beans. Shuck & cut off the cob dozens of ears of corn—very stick hot business. But the messiest part of all of it was doing tomatoes. My mom & I also canned tomatoes at home. I remember the deck railings covered with tomatoes that were “ripening.”
So I am carrying on the the tradition. We got our garden in late this year. June 18th to be exact but I did put in plants not seeds so that helped get us going. 
I just kept putting in plants & finally when it was all done there were 34 plants. They have grown in to a jungle!
I just said “Yikes” that will be a lot of tomatoes. Guess what? I was right! God has really blessed our harvest this year.
There were a few that grew in to monsters. We picked them and compared them to Joshua’s head. He is truly my garden boy. He loves walking in the garden looking for “tomato bugs.” He especially likes when we throw them out in the road for cars to run over—yuck!
Pretty significant!
This morning’s picking was 2 ice cream buckets full to overflowing! We also picked more tonight as it is supposed to storm. So my helper & I got to work. He’s awesome & peeling those slippery tomatoes(notice the new glasses!)
So today we put 12 quarts in the cabinet for this winter. I love using “our” tomatoes for chili, soup, etc. It just makes me think about fall & the coming change of seasons. Our count so far is 21 quarts & there are lots more out there. Needless to say I am too tired for a picture of the finished product but they are beautiful!