Gardening in the Valley of Heart's Delight

Tomatoes


The tomatoes are doing fine, with a minimal amount of water. There's actually a technique some people use called 'dry-farming' where you get your tomatoes established then don't water them at all for the rest of the season. The tomatoes will be smaller and the skins a bit tougher than usual, but the flavor is intense! I've bought them at the Farmer's Market occasionally. Myself, I don't totally withhold water, but I only water, deeply, about every other week.
Just for comparison purposes, here's a picture from May of that 5-foot plus Flame tomato plant above, when it was only about 2 1/2 feet tall. It has totally overwhelmed the little 30" cage and is now tied to stakes which are tied to the fence.
Flame tomato	The Flame tomato fruits are a deep, golden-orange color, marbled with red. I call them my tie-dyed tomatoes. They're a beefsteak type, so each tomato is a hefty one to two pounds, and very meaty. They're also very well attached to the plant, as befits such heavy fruit. I was surprised the first time I realized that you can't use the "It's ripe if it comes off easily" test with beefsteaks.
Look at that interior! It's almost a shame to do anything besides serve them sliced on a platter, so as to properly appreciate the effect. At most, I'll chop up bit of purple basil and sprinkle it across. And the taste? FABULOUS! By the way, that's a twelve-inch* dinner plate there, just to give you some scale.		Flame tomato cut open
I'm particularly proud of this plant because I grew it from seed I saved last year. I had never tried saving tomato seeds before and wasn't sure how to do it or how well it would work. But I was so impressed with last year's plant, which I had found at a drug store, of all places, that I had to try. For the first batch I tried washing all the gooey stuff off and spreading the seeds on paper towels to dry. They stuck to the paper towels! I pulled them off, but most of them still had bits of paper attached. The second batch I left in a bowl to dry, with the gooey stuff still on them. They stuck to the bowl! I had to chip them out with a knife. So I wasn't sure how well any of them would germinate. Just to be safe, I started a lot more seeds than I normally would. The answer? They were fine, just fine, each and every sprouting one of them. I gave away lots of baby tomato plants this spring.