The first tomato

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Folks, tonight I ate the first tomato off the plants in my garden. And it tasted sooooo good!

I realize that some of you enjoy garden-fresh tomatoes year-round, but up here in Alberta, we have a short growing season. It’s long enough for us to grow tomatoes, but just barely. So I was pleased when this one ripened early.

I sliced it up, and ate it. Mmm, good! So much better than supermarket tomatoes that have travelled a few thousand miles.

Mundane and pointless, but I had to share.

2

We still don’t know about the first tomato.

3

Here in Northern Ohio, the first from our gardens usually hit about now. We had Southern Ohio tomatoes in the local market about two weeks ago and they were the first good ones of the year.

I’ve been feasting on tomato and fried egg sandwiches and BLTs every other day. Eat 'em while you can.

4

I am envious. This year, I’m trying an heirloom variety that normally grow in the ground (I grow in pots). I have some small tomatoes, but they are slooooow. Also, they want water every damn day. Prima donas, this batch!

5

I am growing several different tomato varieties this year. The best-tasting (Purple Calabash) is also the ugliest (full of wrinkles, it’s the Shar-Pei of tomatoes). It has almost a wine-like flavor.

I’ve also started to not refrigerate newly-picked tomatoes (refrigeration is supposed to kill the taste, though I’m still on the fence about that).

I’ll say this for supermarket tomatoes - in recent years some offerings have been pretty good, especially the smaller sorts (you can even find “heirloom” varieties on occasion).

My father used to start making pilgrimages to buy the huge “Jersey” tomatoes that appeared in farmers’ markets around this time of year.

6

Cook’s Illustrated did a study that found no difference between refrigerated and unrefrigerated tomatoes except that the fridge ones lasted twice as long.

7

If there are no perfectly ripe, warmed by the sun, tomatoes to pick directly off the plant and eat like apples in heaven, then I have a much-diminished interest in the afterlife.

8

I wish I could say I was harvesting right now. Some accursed rats and their evil cousins, grey squirrels, have been nabbing all my tomatoes just as they ripen.

Are air rifles legal in the suburbs?

9

I’ve been unable to garden the past two years due to health problems :frowning: . Fortunately, this year a friend has been bringing me some of their surplus. When you haven’t had home grown for awhile, you forget how damned good it is.
“Only two things that money won’t buy, and that’s true love and home grown tomatoes.”
Guy Clark, Home Grown Tomatoes

10

Quick – look up recipes for Green Tomato desserts. Pie is best but nobody makes pie crust anymore, so just make pie filling and eat it as a dessert. Or fried green tomatoes, which is a real thing, very popular in Kansas and Missouri.

11

I’m experimenting with a balcony mini-garden this summer. The tomato plants I got are bearing small fruits, but they sure are tasty. They’re ripening at a pretty good rate. My first harvest, I got 15 (the size of cherry tomatoes); the other day, I picked 24. Pretty good for one pot, I think. They’ve even got some fresh blossoms; with any luck, I’ll be able to pick new tomatoes periodically until the frost gets the plants.

12

I’m looking forward to my first Ramapo on maybe, Sunday. BLT! And then a Rutgers 250 in about 10 days, maybe less.

13

I look forward to tomato season every year like a child looks forward to Christmas. Most folks thing that’s strange.

Best way to eat them: tomato in one hand, salt shaker in the other, leaning over the sink.
mmm

14

MMM
You and I would get along famously during tomato season, I think sir, until it got down to the last tomato, then a duel to finish.

15

Ditto.

My tomato season(s) are about the opposite of the OP. Just last week I tore out the last of the Spring tomatoes. This year I tried a couple of the new heat-resistant varieties, and the (relatively mild this year) Texas summer was too much even for them.

But I had delicious eat-from-the-hand tomatoes, one-slice-makes-a-sandwich tomatoes, salad tomatoes, and fried green tomatoes from about May 1st through last Tuesday.

The Fall plants are ready and will go in the ground this week. With any luck I will have more fruit of the gods by October. Unless there is a hard freeze this winter I will pick the last tomato from a scraggly, barely alive plant sometime in February or March.

And start all over :slight_smile: again.

16

[QUOTE=Mean Mr. Mustard]
I look forward to tomato season every year like a child looks forward to Christmas.
[/QUOTE]
The first to-ma-to
the Italians did say
was to make marinara
for pasta that day

17

That could get ugly.

We shall split it. One person slices it in two, the other chooses which half s/he gets.
mmm

18

I thought the First Tomato was Melania Trump.

19

Agreed, however, we need an impartial third party to help negotiate the rules, proceedings and any by-laws, observe the proceedings and enforce the agreed-upon rules if needed. Preferably someone with a demonstrated lack of interest, perhaps even dislike of tomatoes. The Last Tomato is not something to be taken lightly, or to be lightly trusted to the hands and safe-keeping of Others.

20

My wife planted 5 tomato plants in her new raised garden bed. The harvest started a few weeks ago now we are swamped in fresh tomatoes. We now have 2 large bowls on the counter that are full and have already given many away. The plants, many that grew well over 6 feet all are still loaded. We also ended up with a bumper crop of carrots. A couple pepper plants will be harvested soon, they are loaded and the Hubbard squash vines already have basketball sized squash. Those shouldn’t be ready to harvest till October so they should get huge.