Especially when they’re picked straight from the vine/bush/plant-thing, and are still warm from being in the sun…
I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with - they’ve gone absolutely nuts, and it’s all goodness 
You just can’t buy tomatoes this good from the shops.
stretches arms out Ehn! Ehn!
Are they hard to grow on a balcony? I have a bit of a black thumb (killed my lavender and rosemary, and my basil is barely clinging to life) but would love to try growing tomatoes.
I suppose they’d be OK in a pot. Mine are in my little veggie patch by the back door… A couple of months before planting I dug in an entire bag each of compost, chook poo & dynamic lifter. My tomatoes must love that mix, because they grew taller than me and are (well mostly were, because I’ve been eating them and giving them away) covered with tomatoes (red ones, yellow ones, green ones and black ones as well as the standard big/little varieties)
In Queensland (Australia) there were just too many grasshoppers grubs etc to mess around with. We are 1,000 miles north of Melbourne though.
I’d love to grow my own tomatoes. Since I’ve done a bit of clearing of my section, there might be some space for deep-walled planters and a few stakes now. A friend just down the road gave me some of her crop – oh, yes. Home-grown is way better than store-bought.
Curse you, Southern Hemisphere!
I agree. I pretty much won’t eat tomatoes except ones I’ve grown anymore.
No, indeed I can’t. You are BAD, bad, bad Australian person. 
You are causing me to do the the sin of envy. Huh! 
hah, not to worry, for the seasons they will change, and I shall have the summer time, and you shall have the cold, o.
This is true. I am getting the very end of season tomatoes now, and the plants are starting to look very scraggly. Soon it will all be over But that means I get to plant my winter veggies!
I remember a song lyric (forget the song): There are only two things that money can’t buy, and that’s true love and home-grown tomatoes.
Googling suggests it’s Home Grown Tomatoes by Guy Clark
Well, I have plenty of home grown tomatoes - 1 out of 2 isn’t bad 
robin, you better HOPE I never visit your hemisphere, 'cause if I do, I’ll do something awful to you, in revenge for flaunting your fresh tomatoey goodness…
We northern hemisphere folks need to bookmark this thread.
Then, at the height of our summer we will taunt robinc308!
Some years ago, I saw a demonstration of growing a tomato plant in a bag of composted manure. If I recall correctly, they poked holes in one side of the bag for drainage, then flipped it over (it was a 40# plastic bag like most garden centers here sell) and cut an “X” in the middle of the other side. That’s where they planted the plant seedling, and apparently it just grew like crazy! Of course, if you have a big flowerpot, seems to me you can accomplish the same thing without having a plastic bag of manure on your balcony.
My mom has a couple of planters on her front porch that she filled with tomatoes last year, since her front porch gets the best sun. She got tons of 'maters from them. They were big planters - barrels cut in half.
We have Tomato sprouts right now! they came up about 3 days ago, and needed serious thinning. This year we got nearly 100% germination from our seeds! :eek: We are trying “lasagna gardening” where you stack up layers of dirt, compost and newspaper to build a big raised area. Our little seedlings are growing like crazy. Besides the tomatoes we are growing sugar snap peas, burgundy beans, eggplants, peppers and watermelons. Those eggplants have yet to show up though… :dubious:
[QUOTE=
My mom has a couple of planters on her front porch that she filled with tomatoes last year, since her front porch gets the best sun. She got tons of 'maters from them. They were big planters - barrels cut in half.[/QUOTE]
Those half-barrels are great planters, but heavy. I’ve used them for everything except corn, another veggie that’s best still “warm from the sun” and raw.
I had a strawberry patch in a 1/2 barrel for years and had the sweetest berries you would ever taste.
I’m lucky enough to live in a place where there are real farmer’s markets where you can get produce picked yesterday or maybe this morning.
BTW; excess tomatoes can be just tossed in the freezer and used for sauces, etc. All that suffers from freezing is texture, and that’s not an issue when you cook them. Canning is good too, but who’s gonna do that. 
peace,
mangeorge
Tomatoes in March…what a paradise you live in!!
I’ll just have to do with my Tomato growers seed catalog and dream until early July.
Bringing a salt shaker out to the garden for a nice lunch or snack is one of the true joys of summer! Can’t wait!!!
Great post.
We forget that goodies have their seasons. We’re so spoiled by year-round veggies from Chile and other such places that we excuse their faults. So much so that we continue to buy them even when local stuff is in season and available.
I’m a big believer in going to (organic) farmer’s markets first, before you hit the supermarket. The vendors will get to know you, and you them.
BTW; HK, do you start your plants indoors to get a jump on summer?
No, they’re pretty easy to grow on a balcony. I used to grow them on my apartment balcony, six floors up. Get some pots and some good soil and go to it. Watch that they are well-watered though; it was fairly windy where I was living, and mine tended to dry out a little more than they probably would have at ground level. So, I watered them a little more than I might have if they were in the ground. Anyway, yes, they are easy to grow on a balcony.
Mwahahaha…
I’m planting my seedlings in about 2 weeks. I’ll only have to wait until early June!
(planting Sprite, Viva Italia, Porter & Tropic varieties this year)
And… just how DO you kill Basil anyway? Rosemary I can see… but basil seems to be a flavorful weed that reseeds itself everywhere. Same with dill!
My SIL tried to plant tomatoes on the balcony. The only difficulty she had was that the plant far exceeded the physics of the pot and toppled over constantly.
I would recommend a large pot like the whiskey barrel and using a metal tomato cage if you try to grow a traditional tomato plant. There are special varieties that work well on patios (shorter, stockier plants) but I don’t like the taste of the tomatoes as well. According to the gardening magazines, those bags that hang a tomato plant upside down are a great success but I’ve never tried them.
Good luck and share your bounty!