Secret Love Affair

I love tomatoes.  My love of tomatoes goes back to the days of my childhood when I used to pick them from my parents' garden and eat them until I had cankers from the acidity.  To this day I will frequently enter the house with a mouthful of sun-warmed cherry tomatoes answering a garbled "Nuffin'" to the inevitable question, "What are you eating?"

This year when my local Metro was closing the garden centre they began giving plants away for FREE!  I couldn't resist picking up one of each kind of tomato to add to the three semi-exotic varieties I had already planted.  Here they are:

The Grape tomatoes are doing very well and make a tasty addition to salad, or just a nice snack!

The Romas are producing well, but so far everything is staying quite green.  

The Amish Paste are both bountiful and LARGE, but are also staying pretty green.  This is the first (exciting!) sign of colour on the plant.  Between these and the Romas I will be making a lot of sauce this year!  I'll also be looking for a recipe for pizza sauce.

The Green Zebras also seem to be well-producing, but slow to ripen.  These bad-boys are almost there, but still quite hard.  I can't wait to try them!

Also in the garden, but not featured here are Brandywine and Black Cherry tomatoes.  The Black Cherries are on the deck (better sun) and early producers, so I've been eating them for a few weeks.  They're delicious and perfectly snack sized!  The only problem I've noticed is they sometimes disappear at the peak of ripening.  I'm not sure if I have the dog or some other wildlife to blame for it.

I do know it's not @jclarkey munching on them because he has a strong dislike for tomatoes.  I won't say he hates them, because he does like salsa and tomato sauce, but he doesn't tolerate raw tomatoes.  I'm kind of hopeful I can convert him.  Especially given the number we'll have this year!  I also have to thank him for tending to my tomatoes.  They often grow to heights beyond my reach and he has to stake them for me.  Thanks hunny!

Garden Dilemma:
My chives are in flower right now, and I'm not too sure what to do.  We hardly use the chives so I usually try to cut the flowers as soon as they appear because they spread like weeds.  This year some local honey bees have really taken to them!  I feel bad taking food that I won't eat from someone else who's really enjoying it.  Thoughts?

P.S. Blogger is once again taking liberties with photo rotation.  It doesn't matter how I format them prior to upload, blogger seems to have a mind of its own when deciding how photos should be laid out.