Les Tomates

I love tomatoes. I remember when I was very young, eating a big tomato off the plant like an apple. I got canker sores from the acidity, but it was so worth it!

Tomatoes are such a summer treat. They're best at the end of August, when the afternoons are hot but the nights are getting cooler. One of the seasons final gifts before the leaves start to fall. *heart*

While looking at an unexpected seed catalogue that arrived in my mailbox this week, I began to imagine a field of heirloom tomatoes... Reds, greens, purples, blacks & pinks! Imagine a rainbow coloured tomato salad with fresh mozzarella and vigin olive oil drizzled over top. Mmmmm....

There are a few problems with this scenario:

1. My hubby hates tomatoes. I feel that he really doesn't like supermarket tomatoes, which are bred to be tough and bruise resistant, not flavourful. They taste like water and have a gross grainy consistency. Ugh. Unfortunately, I haven't been successful having him give REAL tomatoes a chance.

2. My garden is too small to accomodate a true cornucopia of tomatoes. Two summers ago I planted 3 tomato plants in my raised bed, about 2' apart. They grew to be about 7' tall and 3' wide each. I staked them with fence posts and the still toppled over on one another. There were so many tomatoes they attracted raccoons and I could hear them crunching on green ones at night. I was travelling with work that fall, so Jason had to do all the harvesting and sauce making himself. Tomatoes have since been banned from our garden.

A few plants managed to grow on their own last year in the same spot and they had to be "removed". I managed to save one plant and put it in a pot on the deck. It produced only one tomato (shallow pot), but it was delicious. I sliced it up and put it in a pasta dish.

Our future farm will definitely have a tomato patch -- one to rival all others. In the meantime I'll be drooling over seed catalogues, fantasizing about fresh-off the vine tomates. *Sigh*

Since the seed catalogue that came was from the States, and since it's tomato section left something to be desired, I have ordered a few Ontario seed cattys that I can peruse. We'll see if I can't find a small-ish variety that I can plant this year.