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MaryAnne Spinner, Chicago Master Gardener

Summer is gone, but the tomatoes are still here, piled up in bowls spread across my kitchen counter. Pyramids of 'Sungold', Black Cherry', 'Big Beef', 'Black Plum', 'New Girl', and the rogue tomato that appeared at the edge of the garden. We've given away bushels of the critters, eaten dozens of tomato salads and BLT's, downed buckets of tomato sauce and gazpacho, and still it seems that for every tomato we've eaten, four more magically appear. Oh, and peppers, too, 'Carmen', 'Corno di Toro', 'Ariane', and this year's noble experiment, 'Pequillo'.

Since I'm a third-generation urban dweller, I never learned how to "put up" vegetables and the process is too dangerous and mysterious for my liking. How I envy those who know the secrets of safe canning (an unlearned skill which ranks up there on my wish list with making pie crust and boning a chicken). Instead, I have had to develop urban produce savvy, and street smarts for the garden. For those of you who are also overwhelmed by your crop, here are my Strategies for Coping with Large Red Orbs.

Feed the hungry. This is no doubt the most satisfying and generous outlet for your harvest. Check with local shelters, houses of worship, and food pantries to see if they would like donations. Remember that some organizations are only geared up to accept non-perishable goods, so be sure to call first.

Cook for a crowd. Invite a group over to celebrate your bounty. My friend Dave, who just harvested 150 peppers, is cooking dinner for a dozen tomorrow night. Stuffed peppers are on the menu, of course.

Turn your kids into entrepreneurs. The summer lemonade stand is gone, along with the 90-degree days, but why not try an autumn tomato stand on your corner? Donate half or all of the proceeds to charity, and the kids will have learned two lessons in one.

Thank somebody. You've already given tomatoes to your best friend, your sister, and your garden-less neighbors. But don't forget about the mail carrier, the barber, even the UPS driver on your route. I can't think of anyone (except my benighted older brother) who doesn't like tomatoes.

Barter. Are you a regular at a neighborhood restaurant? Ask the owner if she would like some home-grown heirloom tomatoes, in return for a meal. Who said there's no such thing as a free lunch?

Make sauce. For years, I made gallons of end-of-summer tomato sauce, the old-fashioned and labor-intensive way: I cooked the tomatoes down slowly on the stove-top for hours and then pressed them through a food mill to get rid of those pesky skins and seeds, splattering the whole kitchen in the process. Then I devised an unorthodox but easy method, which yields a truly delicious sauce. First, I toss the tomatoes in a little olive oil, and roast them in the oven until the skin chars and caramelizes a bit. Then, I throw them into the blender and puree them. The end. All those skins and seeds I used to worry about lend body to the sauce, and they're good for you, too. And if you'd like to add another dimension–and use up more of your crop–roast and puree some ripe bell peppers along with the tomatoes. Just be sure to remove the seeds from the peppers first, as they're not as delicate or digestible as tomato seeds.

Make stuffed peppers. My recipe is easy and flexible. For every four peppers, brown a pound of ground or chopped stuff (beef, lamb, turkey, tuna, eggplant, rutabaga), then add a chopped onion and sauté until the onion turns translucent. Add a couple of chopped tomatoes (aha!) and cook down until most of the liquid is gone. Let cool for a few minutes then add one beaten egg (if you don't wait, you'll have scrambled egg-stuffed peppers), a handful of bread crumbs, some chopped parsley or other herbs, salt, pepper, and other seasonings of your choice. Be creative–stir in raisins, pine nuts, pistachios, chopped olives, grated cheese, capers, or anything else that happens to be lurking in your refrigerator. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds, and cut a tiny slice off their bottoms if they refuse to remain upright. Stuff the peppers, place them in an oven-proof dish, pour in an inch or two of tomato sauce (aha again!) and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Serve with rice, and more tomato sauce (yay!!).

Fill your freezer. Tomato sauce and stuffed peppers freeze beautifully and last for months. No more buying canned tomato sauce for your winter dishes. Use your collection of plastic freezer containers (in my kitchen, they seem to reproduce even faster than tomatoes), or freeze sauce in heavy-duty zip-top bags for easy stacking. If you're really pressed for time and the mountain of fresh veggies on your counter grows taller every time you turn your back, just freeze the roasted veggies without pureeing them. Or you can even freeze whole uncooked tomatoes. Defrosted, they can be used over the winter in soups and stews.

Let 'em rot. Well, not just like that. Use your overripe produce to enrich your compost bin, or feed it to your worms (you do have a worm bin, don't you?). And vow that next year, for sure, you'll only grow ten tomato plants instead of thirty. Sure, sure.

Do you have a gardening question? Email the Extension's Electronic Plant Clinic at rwolford@uiuc.edu, and our Master Gardeners will be glad to assist you.