Wednesday, September 21, 2011

We Grow Tomatoes!

As summer comes to a close, I just have to take a moment and sing the praises of my favorite variety of tomato. I know this may seem weird, but we do love our garden, and this tomato plant is our shining glory. Why should we care so much about a stupid plant? Because we're not supposed to be able to grow tomatoes in our yard. I visited a "master" gardener at the farmers market, described our situation to him, and he said that we could not have tomatoes in our yard at all! I could not believe it. "Not enough strong sun!" he declared with great surety. Well I simply could not accept this!

We took a little trip to our favorite nursery, Molbaks (my friend CH once recommended it by saying "it's expensive, but the plants mostly live." where we found several varieties of cherry, beefsteak, and heirloom tomato plants. We bought four different plants, and took them home with our fingers crossed. Even though the year was not overly warm, we got cherry tomatoes within just a few weeks. That season the Supersweet 100 did the best, but a few of the other varieties produced as well.

This year the difference is even more pronounced. The Supersweet started producing first, the fruit are zingy and flavorful, and now, in the middle of September, we're still getting about a pint per day. I cannot say enough about the variety, and we will be planting only these next year. Take that Mr. "Master" gardener! I should invite him over to sample some of my produce.

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