There are good reasons why people have not traditionally gardened on the tops of mountains. I'm rather amazed that we managed to grow any edible food at all in our 3000-foot-elevation Catskill garden this summer; I was not surprised that a bunch of what we grew was simply inedible.

So what do you do with a big surplus of hard, flavorless tomatoes and mealy-tasting melons? Get some friends together and let the kids experiment with the marvelous force of gravity, of course!

This week's harvest smash was so much fun, I can hardly wait until our jack-o-lanterns start to rot ....