It will pay off too! Last year I had started tomatoes really early. In fact at least twice what I knew I could possibly have space for. In the spring I put them on Craigs list and listed them for free everywhere I could think of and couldn’t give them away. I couldn’t believe it. Then later when they started to produce I had one neighbour who I offered some to send their son over to ask if they could have some tomatoes!!
Should have offered them for sale. LOL I don’t know why, but from a psych stand point, it seems that one can sell what no one will take for free.
I’ve heard of people putting stuff on a table with a big sign for free, and no one took them up on it. So they changed the sign and put up prices, then left them out all night. Some one picked them up using the five finger discount. LOL
That tomato story sounds a bit like The Little Red Hen’s experience.
Consider giving it to a local food kitchen
and you can get a tax "write-off" based on value
or can/bottle them up for yourselves for food storage.
Ask your local food co-op ,community food kitchen , or religious community as to where food and fruit can be effectively used.
Boy, that’s a crusty neighbor. Kind of reminds me of an article I read about a Mall in Houston that allowed clerks etc to grow whatever they wanted (vegs, fruit, herbs) in the Mall’s decorative pots. One fellow watched a person pick a tomato off of his plant in HIS pot. He walked over to the person and said (paraphrase) “That will be a dime, we clerks “own” the fruits of our labors, so as a non-planter, I’m requesting a dime for that tomato you picked from my plant”. I thought that was great.