I picked this year’s first tomato today!

I could have waited for the next two to get ripe, but I wanted to pick a tomato. It’s a nice, unblemished red weighing a hefty 7.5 ounces. A good start to tomato season.

All this rain better make my fruit trees ripen!

The garden is filled with fruit that just ain’t ripe.

First sign of tomato

In other news, my tomato plant set fruit while I was busy smoking a chicken. Somebody’s enjoying the heat!

Planting a tomato is like keeping faith with the sun

I don’t care how persistently nasty the weather is; I went out and bought my annual tomato plant today. Don’t laugh. One plant is plenty. I just need a pound of ripe tomatoes at a time to add to meals over the summer. And I always look for a bush tomato so I don’t have […]

Arroz con pollo con tomates frescos

Tonight the tomatoes have met their fate: I chopped them up and made a big pot of arroz con pollo. My method was loosely based on this recipe, and considering how it’s written, loose is the only way you can follow it. And it’s loosely based on all the other times I’ve fried up some […]

Tomatoes, all red

Amazing. All the tomatoes I picked turned red, down to the littlest one. I wonder if leaving them more exposed to light made a difference this year. Or maybe I picked them earlier. Who knows? I guess I better get around to eating them.

Tomatoes just want to be red

Right around the beginning of November, I saw the frost written on the ground and cut down the tomato plant, filling this bowl with green tomatoes. The first three red tomatoes I soon removed and ate. And then the next few to turn red. And the next. And now a whole bunch of little green […]

Fall colors

Here’s some random colors from pink to red. Most are the usual suspects for autumn, from pink snapdragons to orange euonymous fruits to red Alpine strawberries back after the heat for an encore. And every year my warm spot for tomatoes shelters them way longer than you might expect. Yes, we have tomatoes!

A tomato in hiding

Once the weather turns cool, every tomato that ripens on the plant is like gold. Hidden gold, tucked away inside the thicket of dying leaves. And it’s still flowering, not caring that nights warm enough to set fruit are not coming back. Unlike squash, tomatoes do not believe in deadlines.

Nothing but a tomato

It’s been a great week to be a growing tomato. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain — Hey, the sun is out! Oh my god (yes, I’m spelling it out) look how big that tomato is! It’s at least twice the size of all the others put together. Can I help it if I’m […]