My husband Bruce started harvesting his processing tomatoes. It’s a very busy time for us, as the tomatoes are harvested day and night, depending when the cannery needs them. Harvesting began as it usually does in July, but this year, our three-month harvest period will extend later into mid-October, because the wet spring conditions delayed planting. Then the weather went from wet to very hot. We had a 10-day heat wave in June, with temperatures peaking at 110 degrees. Now we’re entering another heat wave, with temperatures forecasted to exceed 100 degrees for the next 10 days.

But the really hot news is that tomatoes are part of the latest food trend: vegetable soups are being packaged as ready-to-drink beverages. Of course, Campbell’s Soup led the way with V8 juice, which is where the tomatoes pictured above will go. Drinking vegetables is no longer called juicing, it’s called “souping.” So drink your veggies!