Tomato Tornado

In summing up the garden season, I had to give the tomatoes their very own post. Bold and bright and beautiful in their various shapes and sizes, they demanded it.

We started the season with an unprecedented number of different tomato varieties, thanks to the pooling of my seed collection and Nick's. Sure enough, that led to some great variety in the harvest basket, too! These are Green Zebras, one Orange Banana, one Chocolate Stripe, a Brandywine peeking in from the top, and various grapes and cherries.

There was a single Pruden's Purple plant, and it produced a single - but giant - fruit. (Maisie for scale.)

Nick happened to have a fish scale handy, so we weighed it. It came in somewhere between 1.5 and 2 pounds!

Here it is with its more modestly sized companions: Peacevine (red cherries), Sungold (orange cherries), Yellow Pear (yellow and pear-shaped, of course), and Juliet (red oblongs).

I saved seeds for next year, too, so we can do it all over again.

The seeds ferment in water for a few days, then get spread out to dry.

Meanwhile, lots of this year's harvest ended up like this:

Cut in half, sprinkled with a little salt, and then slow-roasted in the oven for a few hours. Delicious blended up with roasted garlic and basil for a fresh, simple sauce. Or marinated in olive oil, garlic, and basil for a few days and then used to top zucchini pancakes, along with a dollop of goat cheese (inspiration found here). As anyone who's been invited to dinner at my house in the peak of harvest season probably knows already, I make this a lot!

Yay for tomatoes - it'll be a long wait before they come around again!