Fried Green Tomatoes & Trellises

A few years ago I had the pleasure of trying Fried Green Tomatoes for my first time in a little town in Kentucky, they were wonderful but anything dipped in a batter and fried is usually pretty yummy, how can you go wrong? These are my Heirloom Sweet Horizon tomatoes that are such the luscious green right now, I am so tempted to pick them now and try this recipe from Simply Recipes, once these ripen they will be a deep persimmon-orange, like the color of sunshine. Should I wait?



Every year in the past I have used the cheap wire cages to house my tomatoes, they never worked well for me, often leaving my tomatoes flopping over in the dirt with the stalks bending and just out of control. So this year, I planted 5 tomatoes in the ground when they were young, once they started getting some height I used wooden stakes to build a teepee like structure around them. These tomatoes have really been nurtured, every time they grow a little taller, I use plant tape to attach each individual stalk to a stake of the teepee. So far it has worked great and they are growing super tall and have the strength to hold the weight of all the tomatoes. Two of our tomato plants are about 7 feet tall right now! It looks much nicer then the wire cages and it was completely economical, a few long stakes of wood, fishing wire and a little planters tape. Not sure how well you can see in the images but here are some of our "tomato teepee's".