"Sweet 100's" courtesy of Nature herself

The light from the window hits the skins of the tomatoes...
light just right to bring out their ripe vibrant red.

Just outside that same window is where they grew.

Little red miracles
planted by nature herself...
over ripe fruit dropped last fall
onto the waiting brown earth.
Winter and spring rain watered the forgotten seeds.
Morning sun coaxed the seedlings into being.

The first midsummer harvest yields much...
four whole cups.
Still more are left on the vine
to ripen a teensy bit
and ensure their juicy perfection.

The harvester is giddy.
He loves tomatoes more than candy.
To know how they came to be,
makes him all the more giddy.

As full of wonder and delight
as a six year old walking
the rows of a vegetable garden
for the first time.

True confessions of a tomato gardener

Before this year, I've never been able to successfully grow a tomato larger than a roma.

There.

I said it.

Yes, it's true. Despite successfully growing all sorts of plants (edible and otherwise), I haven't ever been able to grow large tomatoes. And my shame has been compounded by the fact that Hubby is a tomato lover and connoisseur bordering on "tomato junkie".

Oh the horror.


I thought I would be forever doomed to a life of growing small tomatoes...

...until this year.

Our growing season is very long. We can put in tomatoes as early as March and have them ready for a mid-summer harvest. Usually that's what I do. This year I didn't.

I put in the tomato seedlings from our local nursery center about 2 months later in the growing season. Despite my track record, I hopefully put in a beef steak variety as well as cherry and roma.

As I was watching other gardeners blogging about their garden bounty, I tried to hang on to the hope that our jungle of rapidly growing tomato plants would eventually produce something other than massive green stems. Of course, the cherry tomatoes started producing fruit first and I figured, "Oh well, I should have known better than to hope."

Then Hubby noticed a larger tomato growing in among the tangle of vines. I noticed another. And then another.

"Please, oh please let one of them ripen to maturity," I said to myself.

Hubby assured me that even if the big ones never ripened, they were big enough to try fried green tomatoes. That made me feel a little better. A little.

Late yesterday evening Hubby came in with his hands behind his back. And with a little flourish he produced the surprise. A ripe beef steak tomato bigger than the palm of his hand! He cupped in two hands and I marveled.  I hadn't even seen it ripening. But he had. And he was thrilled to harvest it (I'm glad he did because I have a skin allergy whenever I brush my bare arms against tomato vines).

We photographed the miraculous beef steak for posterity before Hubby dissected it to become part of his nightly salad. If I didn't have photographic evidence I think I may still be in disbelief that I actually managed to grow that thing.

P.S. This tomato was grown completely organically. No pesticides. No fertilizer. Just organic compost dug into the soil before transplanting the seedling. Thanks to the birds and predatory insects in my garden, I don't have to worry about tomato-eating bugs.

My tomato experiment: Yesterday's harvest of our weird and whacky tomatoes

I don't do well growing tomatoes from seed so when it comes time to put some in I go to our local nursery and buy a couple of cell packs of tomato seedlings with 6 plants in each. This year I bought a cell pack of roma tomatoes and a cell pack of cherry tomatoes.

I then conducted my own not-so-scientific experiment.

I planted one each of the plants in clay pots on our deck with morning shade and full afternoon sun in super-fancy-schmancy Miracle-Gro soil that's supposed to produce outstanding veggies. Flanked by separate pots of chives, Italian parsley and basil I expected these plants to do very well with the full sun all afternoon to sunset and the influence of the herbs around them.

I planted a couple more plants down in the ground off the edge of our deck with the same exposure as the pots. I built up a funky little planter around them from scrap concrete blocks (a former mow strip) and put some of the Miracle-Gro soil on top. A week or so later I mulched with some donated rabbit droppings and alfalfa as well as chipped branches from our own yard. I anticipated the green growth might bolt because of the added nitrogen from the mulch but figured it would be a good part of the experiment anyway.

I planted two of the plants in the front garden where mostly roses grow. I have a 4x8 foot planter box in front of our living room window that gets full morning sun from dawn until around 1 or 2 pm then there's shade for the rest of the day from the house. The soil in the planter box is just cheapy top soil from WalMart that we had leftover from another project and had dumped in there and let sit for a season until we planted something in it. I also planted a couple of parsley plants in between the two tomato plants that were at opposite ends of the large planter. I anticipated these plants would do poorly but I wanted them to go into the ground anyway.

Each of the plants, regardless of location, got their own dripper on the drip mist system for watering 15 minutes every morning at a slow drip.

None of my plants were treated with pesticide or herbicide. There isn't any need with companion planting because the good bugs and birds eat the bad bugs, and the proximity to tomato-friendly companion plants takes care of the rest.

Results of my not-so-scientific experiment

The two plants in pots haven't grown larger than about 10 inches high. Their leaves are sickly looking like both plants are on the verge of kicking the bucket. Both produced fruit true to their labeling. The romas (pictured above and below) were the expected size for that variety while the cherry tomatoes were a little on the small side. I was just happy the plants produced anything considering what they've looked like.

The two plants in the ground below the edge of the deck are pretty spindly with tiny leaves but lots of blooms and are about 2 feet high. The fruit is neither a cherry tomato nor a roma. Instead the fruit is shaped like a roma but is smaller than even the smallest grape. Some fruit is smaller than my pinky fingernail with most fruit being the size of my thumbnail.

The two plants in the front planter box were the biggest shocker. The plants are 3 feet high and cover the entire 4x8 foot box. I've had to cut trunks back that were invading the front porch and beginning to block the front door. The size of the trunks are larger in circumference than my pinky finger! The leaves are big and lush as well. I would expect plants with so much energy going to greenery to not produce blooms or fruit. But these plants have been prolific bloomers and were the first ones to produce ripe fruit over a month earlier than the others in back. Like the plants in the ground in back, the fruit is oddly neither roma or cherry but a weird hybrid of the two.

I've spoken to other gardeners in our area that have said they've had some weird behavior with their tomatoes this year because of our wet spring, unseasonable June rain and cooler than normal temps. I feel better knowing I'm not alone. It was just nice to finally go out and get a harvest yesterday that consisted of more than just a handful of tiny tomato baubles. It's such a weird year for growing tomatoes.

Last Harvest

Today marked the last harvest of tomatoes for the year, as it was time for me to pull the plants out and get on with moving the dirt and planter box to a new location. The last harvest of the summer vegetables is always bittersweet, particularly when it's been a low-yield summer like this one has been.

Interestingly, the pole beans that gave us beans in fits and spurts throughout the summer had a sizable crop to pick. AND the vines are still sending out blossoms. Since I don't have to move the planter they are in, I'm going to leave them in and, hopefully, we'll get another nice crop in time for Thanksgiving in November.

The last cucumber was picked even though it is as huge as a zucchini. Left forgotten under a large leaf, the thing is out of control. I think Hubby may try to use it anyway.

And the current crop of lemons on the Eureka lemon tree are starting to ripen so we were able to put a couple in the harvest basket so they can be used to make the vinaigrette for the bean and tomato salad Hubby will probably make with this basket full of produce. I think we've got enough beans that we can freeze some to use over the winter. That would be really nice.

Tomorrow I'm going to photograph the latest garden wonder that I discovered while we were harvesting that has left me really scratching my head. Stay tuned...

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Brugmansia Sniffing and Pomegranates Blushing

Silly me! It didn't dawn on me to try and smell the brugmansia blossoms until Kylee from Our Little Acre commented that I should go take a whiff. Shortly after reading her comment, Hubby and I went out together to sniff for the first time. Wow! The scent is heavenly! It smells like a hybrid scent of lilac and daffodil to me.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me that they would have a scent. I guess it's because I've always been so entranced by the sheer size of these large blooms (about 4 inches wide and over 6 inches in length) I didn't even think to smell them. Silly me!

After the sniffing was done, I enjoyed photographing in the light of a summer evening--the best light for my style of shooting.

Hubby was headed back in the house when he stopped, turned and said, "Here's a sure sign that autumn is coming!"

I looked up from shooting the brugmansia to see Hubby cradling a blushing pomegranate in his hand. For Hubby, this is sign of hope--a sign that the heat of summer will actually end one day--sooner rather than later. He was very happy to see the blush on the shiny pomegranate skins. So was I.

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