
A weekend in Kitchener yielded much produce – some gifted to me, some purchased, and some foraged.

My friend Jon planted 14 tomato plants this year and they are producing like crazy. In a moment of weakness and despite the fact that I had 2 full bushels of romas in my car, I decided to take a bucket full. What’s 25 more pounds anyway…

As luck would have it I read a recipe for yellow tomato Bloody Mary’s the other day and Jon’s tomatoes happened to be yellow. I think it was destined to be. They were a nice treat.

A bushel is a LOT of tomatoes. Two bushels is 2 LOTS! So far they have yielded 68 jars of whole tomatoes, 2 bottles of Jamie Oliver’s ketchup. 2 litres of dried tomatoes and a pot of soup for dinner tonight. Tomorrow I plan to pickle the rest. I’ve pickled whole roma tomatoes for a few years now and they are like crack. A stranger once came up to me in a Stratford restaurant and said “Oh YOU’RE the one who makes the tomatoes”.

Enough about tomatoes for now but I am scheming already and will likely have more to post of the topic before long.

I picked up about 5 litres of habanero peppers. MM. Over half of them are in the dehydrator. The rest will become an assortment of hot sauces.

I also got a basket of prune plums at the market that landed in the dehydrator. They are chewy and sweet and will be a great snack in February.


I foraged 2 hauls of wild food near hiking trails in Kitchener. I stumbled on an apple tree that was loaded with perfectly ripe crisp sour green apples. Half of them are in the dehydrator and the other half are for eating fresh. The other find was a grove of wild plum trees. The fruit are the size of cherries and amazingly good.

I filled a travel mug and an empty Tim’s cup with them and turned them into a couple of jars of jam. I need to give in and get labels. There’s no way I’ll be able to recall all the different jams I’ve made.

Have I said how much I love this time of year? Harvest.