I don't do all that extra work of blending things for my garden. Besides composting, I often will put large quantities of rotting bananas directly into my garden soil when mucking about with it for some other reason. (I get free old produce sometimes, it wouldn't be practical to blend 7 cases of bananas!) A few months later there is never any sign of the bananas except for the hard bits of the stalk at the top end of the peel. That is if the banana/peel is buried. It will dry out and rot more slowly if left on top of the soil. I have acidic soil, so also sprinkle a small amount of wood ashes from my woodstove in my garden. That has a lot of potassium, 6-8% typically, and even more calcium, plus a little phosphorus, and no nitrogen. It also raises the pH, so if you have alkaline soil to start with, don't apply ashes. Also, ONLY use ash from plain firewood, not treated lumber or charcoal or coal or anything that isn't just wood. So if you know someone with a wood stove, ask for some ashes. Marcia

You realize that even though you have not heated the tomatoes when peeling, that eventually they will need to see heat in order for proocessing them. If you were wanting to make a sauce, no peeling is necessary and not a single seed passes through a food strainer like The VIllaware/Roma or Victorio. A quick dip in boing water and then in cold (not necessary for it to be in ice!), the skins simply fall off. Because they contain quite a bit of water, a cold pack of whole tomatoes will probaly float or sink in a canning jar, leaving all that clear liqid behind.

I grew these this year, mostly as a novelty and they turned out to be one of my best varieties. They are somewhat susceptible to drought but otherwise and excellent choice. Very productive plants with delicious, meaty fruits. Like a paste tomato except much better flavor.

The last two days we have gotten lots of rain. It was a welcome relief until I went out to my garden and most of the tomatoes which were almost ripe had splits in the skin. Will these splits heal, or should I pick all of these now? I didn't know too much moisture would cause splits in the skin like this! **** There are three kinds of splitting, concentric and radial which occur at the stem end, and horizontal which occurs elsewhere. I've grown Supersonic and it isn't prone to either radial or concentric splitting in my experience so I'm assuming the splits run up and down or around the fruits. The splits of concentric and radial heal over pretty well but not the ones caused by too much water intake when the tomato skin is at its maximum and can no longer enlarge, which causes the splits. if I were you I'd pick them now and keep them on the counter out of the sun and see how they do. They may heal over or not, but you should get some useful fruits. Carolyn