November 7, 2006

still more garden tomatoes

I haven’t bought a tomato since the end of July! Looks like my 18 tomato plants produced 4 months of tomatoes. At two a night, that’s alot of tomatoes. I’ve almost forgotten what the styrofoam grocery store tomatoes taste like. Last night we ate a nice yellow Brandywine that I picked green a month ago. I am surprised at how many of my green tomatoes, picked October 13, have ripened. The box was full then of mostly green tomatoes. Only a dozen are still green. Though I was planning to…

October 20, 2006

the green tomatoes are ripening

It seems like the tomatoes are ripening really fast. I brought them upstairs today to take out the red ones. Lots of them. The green ones are going back to the basement.

October 13, 2006

the end of tomato season

We have a frost warning in our area for tonight, so I harvested all of the tomatoes and pulled up the vines. I picked all of the tomatoes: green, pinkish and red. There were quite a lot of them hidden under the leaves out there. Its a chilly day here, in the 50s, with no breeze. The cold air that left the midwest under a lot of snow is moving our way. No snow for us, thank goodness! The Boston area may or may not frost tonight, but the tomatoes…

September 28, 2006

Beefsteak tomato

This is the best tomato from my garden so far this year. It was really delicious. Solanum lycopersicum

September 20, 2006

sliced yellow Brandywine tomato

I was just reading some history on this variety, which apparently is unrelated to the Brandywine variety. It is described as “a large yellow beefsteak type tomato with an excellent flavor and a creamy texture that reaches weights from 1 to 2 pounds. These nice yellow tomatoes are produced in adequate numbers upon an indeterminate vine which features potato type leaves“. It was tasty. The creamy texture is very pronounced. For me, this variety (and my real Brandywine’s) produced about 3-4 tomatoes per 10 foot plant. Compared with about 15…

September 18, 2006

tomato spots

Does anyone know what happened here? A few of my tomatoes are mottled with chocolate brown spots. I’ve never seen this before. I’m guessing a mold or virus of some kind. Maybe from too much water. I’ve been lucky this year with no end rot, minimal cracking and nicely shaped tomatoes. This at the cost of a water bill twice my normal (aarrgh!). My guess is the brown is from too much water. Any ideas? Solanum lycopersicum

September 17, 2006

tomato bowl

My counter top bowl is staying full of tomatoes. That’s a yellow Brandywine on top. Something new I found and am looking forward to trying. We eat tomatoes for lunch and dinner now, and I will have to start putting some away. I’m trying to remember what I like to do with them. One easy thing is to just slice and freeze in baggies. They are great on homemade pizzas.

September 10, 2006

tomatoes with mozarella

Ocimum basilicum This is my favorite way to eat tomatoes. Only fresh garden tomatoes. Ingredient list: tomatoes, garlic, basil, fresh mozarella cheese, olive oil and salt. Solanum lycopersicum

September 8, 2006

Supersonic tomatoes

Supersonics are ripening.

September 4, 2006

flowers in the tomato family

The tomato family (Solanaceae) includes several wildflowers most of which are poisonous, potatoes, eggplants, chile peppers, tobacco, nicociana, petunias and ,of course, tomatoes. These flowers are (from upper left): Brandywine tomato, eggplant, horsenettle, jalepeno pepper and a yellow wildflower that looks like it is a solanacea, but I haven’t identified it yet. 9/6/06: I finally figured out the yellow “wildflower” at the bottom. Its a tomatillo that is growing on my parents compost pile. I found a flower just like it at http://www.yougrowgirl.com/journals/gayla/000053.php. Maybe my mom will save me some…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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