If you grew tomatoes in your garden this year then you’ve probably been busy as a bee for the last month or so. I may have got a little carried away when I started all those tomato seeds way back in early spring! I didn’t realize at the time all the work I’d be doing right now bringing in the harvest. 
It all started with a little dream I had while throwing together one of our Friday night homemade pizzas. As usual I struggled with the can opener trying to pry open the can of store bought tomato sauce and throw in all the spices, and it hit me that I should just make my own sauce!
Like, from scratch. Sew the seeds, grow the plants, harvest, and somehow turn them into sauce?!!! Easy right? I hope!
I grow a couple tomato plants each year, but I knew I’d have to amp up my garden and plant much more if I wanted to make sauce. It sounded so simple in the beginning, but boy did I underestimate the time and energy the tomatoes would take from me this summer. 
Each day when I went out to the garden for maintenance I’d just remind myself how lovely a pantry full of homemade, homegrown tomato sauce would be! The base to so many of my go-to dishes would be started, grown, harvested, and canned by me! Doesn’t it sound romantic? 
Fast forward to now and I’m up to my eyeballs in tomatoes and channeling my inner Julia Child. It’s a little less romantic and a little more like “Oh shit what have I done?” , but I’m making it work.
I’m making sauce!
I’m also making stewed tomatoes, tomato jam, sun dried tomatoes, tomato pies, and BLT’s. Turns out I’m pretty decent at growing the damn things!
They keep growing, I keep cooking, it’s amazing. And exhausting! 
Secretly I like it. I REALLY like the fact that I made all this from scratch, literally seed to pantry and that’s a great feeling. Self sufficiency is very rewarding. I’ll most certainly do the same thing next year, probably on an even bigger scale.
Will I whine about it? Likely. But I’ll still do it and be glad I did.
At the end of the day there’s just nothing like a basket of ripe, homegrown tomatoes, and a pantry full of homemade goodies. Now if Fall could just hurry up and get here I could quit growing these things and start cracking open jars of sauce for chili!!!
Until then, you can either find me in the garden or in the kitchen. I’ll be the girl underneath the mountain of heirloom tomatoes! Happy harvest! 
Farm To Table Mama 