Having never done battle with a group of 12 tomato plants at mid August growth, I never understood how the idea for the film “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” came about. I know now, my friends, I do.

With Pepper Town USA neatly in order, the not- so-sleepy neighbor plot to the East (?) got out of control in the last few weeks. While it’s tenders were tending to other matters, the tomato trestle system could barely contain the high summer growth. Plants were growing every which way but as intended, with fear of taking over the basil and cucumber patches– egads!

A little known fact about grape and cherry tomatoes vines– allowed to grow along the ground, they will re-root and fuse with a neighboring plant. We had about 10 vines that made it from one side of the trestle to the other side. In an attempt to get some order back, I re-tied many of the vines and even tied some over the top of the trestle system so that the tomato bunches would start to grown over the trestle with fruit hanging down from the wires– rather than on the ground with easy access for all sorts of pests.

After 5 hours of re-giggering, Victory was indeed mine. Not with out some causalities, of course. About four sections of vine needed to by cut to make room and sun for other plants- there was just no way around it. Further, two pints of green tomatoes were shaken from their branches as the re-org took place. Not to worry, my friends, they will will not go down in vain. About three weeks from now, pickled green cherry tomatoes await your Labor Day martini!

As for the rest of the garden, the green beans and Pepper Town USA are in the lead with great strides and major yields ready for the taking.

I’ll wait for the Mayor of PT to arrive before harvest, as I think he has some plans for these beauties. The green beans were harvested and went to the pasteurization tank for their last Hoooray…

The cucumber plants seemed to suffer from the tomato invasion, and are not yielding as much as I would like to see at this point. I sourced some organic vegetable food from the hardware store and stuffed their little mounds– hopefully we see a turn around.

The Sugar snap peas maybe a complete loss, we’ll have to see how they do with the bit of maintenance and the additional water. Oh, and the basil party is on. One batch of basil pesto in the freezer already!