Show us your tomatoes!!!!

[HiDelight]

I garden for tomatoes ..I love every single thing I put in the ground and every seed I grow every cutting every root every bulb

but nothing in my garden is as important to me as growing wonderful tomatoes seriously people who do not like tomatoes blow my mind!

I equate gardening with cooking and visa versa...and honestly
I am a cook not a baker so really I come from the school of toss and taste ..and I plant the same way

and this year I can honestly say I have done the best job with my tossing and tasting when it comes to my tomates ..then..well ever!!! Seriously everything went well I had some failures and learned some amazing things here! (thank you to everyone this has been so fun sharing!)

but my summer is a success if I get a nice load of great tasting tomatoes ..this year ..well I exceeded my best!!! (and I have been doing this for many years)

and I can hardly wait to post pictures ..although no matter how hard I try so far my photos kind of suck! ..and really for looks do not think they would win a prize at a fair or anything ... ..but for taste and texture ..these got everything they needed to be the best tomatoes I have ever eaten ... the San Marzanos are absolutely perfect ..I could close my eyes and be in my old neighborhood with these tomatoes ..and the heirlooms have a such a sweet savory and finish so nicely in your mouth ..I am not even going to worry that I may have too many!!!( and my plants are packed with babyheads) ..every single tomato will be treated with respect and adoration ..(I am not off the wall this is how I really feel! anyone else get like this over a fruit or vegetable?)

tomorrow night will be a last moment gathering of folks to celebrate the tomato ...app to dessert I am going to pull this off!

So please please show and tell us about your tomatoes ..your joys your saddness and your plans.. recipes ..the craziness ....good and bad ..(if there is another thread I apologize I did look)

show us your tomato thread

I am so blissful right now ..I have acheived a kind of tomato Nirvana row

someday maybe the internet will find a way we could share tastes!

thanks Sparkles your blue core tomato started my yearning to see more tomatoes

 

[vfem]

Mine blew my mind this year! I was thinking everything you said as well, all the flowers, all the quick eats, the amazing melons which my daughter went NUTS for... the awesome things my husband built for fun and for nature to enjoy... all I waited all summer for were my tomatoes!

To make my grandma's sauces, to make my own... to come up with fresh salsa, and cooked to can... to have TOMATO SANDWICHES!!! Mmmmm


All the trials, errors... the good... the bad... the salads alone made up for it all!!!

I can't wait to see photos of yours So please share... I will photo my harvests from the next couple of days later... but these I also posted earlier!

 

[COgirl]

I would like to post some pics but since my computer crashed I'm on a borrowed one. This was my first year for heirlooms and they are really starting to come on well and they are just so so sweet, we picked one this weekend that was 1lb3oz, I took pics of that one, if I ever get my computer back I will post it. Now that I have grown heirlooms they will always have a spot in my garden
:rainbow-sun

 

[digitS']

This picture was taken about a week ago. Since then, the slicing tomatoes have started to ripen and I'm just as overwhelmed with them at the kitchen table! And, it's not just the Early Girls!

As you can see, these are mostly the cherries. One cherry in my garden, which goes by the unique name "Large Red Cherry," is a little late but I'm getting those now. LRC is an heirloom and I've grown it for nearly 40 years. It was the 1st cherry tomato that I grew and I used to think that all cherries were no earlier than the slicers because I had this generic, Large Red Cherry, that was kind of a big plant and slow.

I think that might be part of the "trick" with early production - small plants. A small small tomato plant and earliest in my garden these days isn't a cherry. They are Bloody Butchers and one is in the lower right corner. It isn't a cherry but not much bigger and I've been enjoying them for about 3 weeks.

The cherries in the picture (sans Large Red Cherry) are Red Pear, Ildi, Yellow Submarine, SuperSweet 100, SunSugar, Sungold, and Gold Nugget. Gold Nuggets are the smallest plants and really, really unloading right now!

This year, I'm involved in a taste test (with DW) to decide once and for all, which is better: Sungold or SunSugar. (I really better not let it be a "once and for all" because I'm enjoying the experience too much. )

Steve

 

[HiDelight]

OMG those are so amazing you guys I am so glad I am not alone in my adoration!!!! sometimes when I speak of tomatoes at work people start cracking up and tell me "get a room!"

I wish it was easy for me to just post a picture but they get lost when I load them in ..it is just a mess for me for some reason so I thought I would make a mini blog ..and my upload thing is already almost full

if I donate money to this board then I can get more photos on I think right?

 

[HiDelight]

"This year, I'm involved in a taste test (with DW) to decide once and for all, which is better: Sungold or SunSugar. (I really better not let it be a "once and for all" because I'm enjoying the experience too much. )"

ok Digit I am jealous

 

[HiDelight]

I would like to post some pics but since my computer crashed I'm on a borrowed one. This was my first year for heirlooms and they are really starting to come on well and they are just so so sweet, we picked one this weekend that was 1lb3oz, I took pics of that one, if I ever get my computer back I will post it. Now that I have grown heirlooms they will always have a spot in my garden
:rainbow-sun

I can not wait to see it!how about some great soup to nuts recipes for tomorrows tomato feast?

 

[HiDelight]

Vfem how cool is that when it all works out

 

[Catalina]

Here are some of mine

 

[zynski]

I'm very envious of all of you. We in the Northeast - me in New Hampshire - had a horrible year for tomatoes. We suffered with a blight, akin to the Irish potato blight. Rumor has it that those who bought their plants from any of the local big box stores, bought plants that were infected with the blight virus, and that a large grower that supplied those plants was responsible because he used unsterilized soil. This is what I heard on a local gardening show.

Add to this the fact that we had one of the wettest Juneand July on record, it literally rained almost every day, didn't help the situation any. Most people gave up on their tomatoes

I managed to save some of my plants by using a product called Seranade. I'm enjoying some tomatoes now, but my plants were severely stunted, lots of blossom drop and small fruit.