The sign out front said "Village Farms", so of course Denisa called them to see if they had tours available. No one ever answered the only telephone number she could find on the internet, but we did find their tomatoes in the local grocery store. So we decided we would just show up at their door to see if we could take a tour.
The very friendly gate keeper explained that they didn't do tours. When we asked if we could buy produce here, she gave us a pass into the packing plant to find out. This is a huge operation, and they were loading 18-wheeler trailers full of tomatoes. They don't often sell to individuals, but they would do it only on Monday or Friday.
So we showed up on Friday morning as we were leaving for our next destination. The smallest units they will sell is a whole box of tomatoes. They grow 4 different varieties--Roma, grape, villagio marzano, and compari. We had never had campari tomatoes, but they looked delicious and they were the cheapest.
Denisa was so excited about her purchase of 25 pounds of tomatoes! They were just picked that morning, and they smelled so good! We don't buy many souvenirs, and this was the best $12 souvenir ever!
From the picture you can get an idea of the length of each green house, and they are stacked one after the other for a quarter of a mile. We found that they had 122 producing acres of greenhouses on this road! The only thing bigger than the green houses is the smile on Denisa's face!
As we drove away, her wheels started turning on the possibilities of what we could make with these tomatoes. She asked Mark about his favorite things made out of tomatoes. In his usual helpful way, he replied, "salsa and ketchup." It soon became apparent that Denisa might be on her own for using up these tomatoes.
As soon as we got set up in our next site in Van Horn, Texas, Denisa started sorting tomatoes. She was glad to see that they included various shades of ripeness.
The ripest obviously needed to be eaten first. She gave some to the manager of the Desert Willow RV park, and then immediately made a fresh batch of salsa before Mark even got the electricity hooked up to the motorhome. It was delicious!
Since then Denisa has made cucumber and tomato salad, fresh tomato spaghetti sauce, tossed salad (that looked more like tomato salad with a little lettuce added), sauted vegetables with tomatoes, BLTs, and fresh tomato soup. We are also enjoying fresh salsa every day.
But it was obvious that we could never eat 25 pounds of tomatoes, and they were certainly too tasty to waste. So Denisa gave them away to everyone she came in contact with. The phrase, "We have way too many tomatoes, would you like some?" showed up in every conversation. We found that in every RV that pulled into our park, there was at least one tomato lover. Denisa found that most people smile very big when you hand them half a dozen beautiful tomatoes for free. They went to people from all over the country (and Canada) that found their way into the Desert Willow RV Park during the three days we stayed there. Denisa was on a mission to give away tomatoes, and she was like the welcoming party when a new RV pulled into the park. She took them to the preacher on Sunday, and handed them to our RV repairman.
Because everyone seemed so happy to receive these tasty tomatoes, it has been easy to "dispose" of them. Denisa loves that unexpected smile that everyone gives when they receive something so good for nothing. Those tomatoes have blessed us over and over in many ways!
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