Do you ever get annoyed right after you eat a nice, ripe, homegrown tomato at those little pieces of tomato skin that get caught in your teeth, or even against the roof of your mouth? Sure, the tomatoes are worth it, but those little pieces of skin can drive me up the wall for hours afterwards, especially after eating a bunch of cherry tomatoes.
This post is about how I learned to get rid of those little tomato bits.
It all started a few weeks ago when I posted about a new type of bag that you could put on your fruit to protect them from insects, animals, or whatever. You can see that post here.
Anyway, since that time the deer have come again and again to my garden, and they have targeted all of my almost but not quite ripe tomatoes. Unless you’ve experienced it, it’s impossible to imagine the frustration of going out one evening and seeing a bunch of tomatoes just starting to change color, and then the next morning going out to see them again – and they’re all gone.
Fortunately for me, the tomatoes that I put bags around were saved from deer.
The tomatoes above were protected by bags — overall they worked well
The funny thing was, about a quarter of the bags that I used for bagging those tomatoes went missing. I figured that was no big deal though. The tomatoes probably just aborted for some reason, the bags fell, and the wind blew them into the neighbor’s yard – not my problem anymore!
And then I saw this huge piece of goose poop out on the lawn not too far from the garden. Now don’t get me wrong, goose poop is no big deal – usually I don’t notice it at all– but this was such a big pile that I couldn’t avert my eyes. After a week or so of having this pile of poop sitting in my yard I had had enough. Even though it had rained, this pile just wasn’t disappearing.
So I went over to investigate.
Goose poop, or the leavings of an evil deer?
As you may have already guessed, it was a bag that I had protected one of those tomatoes with. I could tell from the red flecks inside that it had held a beautiful red tomato. Some dingleberry deer plucked that bagged tomato off the plant and sucked out the yummy guts of the tomato while leaving the nasty skin behind.
And that’s how I learned to get rid of the skin from my tomatoes.
Jeff, you obviously didn’t grow up with an Italian Grandmother. I spent many an hour staining the “meat” and juices though a mesh(usually metal in a funky grinding device), just to make the perfect sauce.
Best GP post title ever.
You gave me a laugh today! Your tomatoes must be pretty tasty for the deer to be that desperate to eat them.