The plants are looking so good right now, healthy, with tons of flowers and little tiny globes that will turn into big red tomatoes or nice red and yellow peppers. But we have to wait. Weeks. That's tough.
Take this weekend for example. We're going to visit my Aunt Joan on Long Island. She just loves tomatoes (I have posted one of her recipes in fact.) The watering system is all set, so we don't have to worry about our little plant babies (this is our first trip with the system in place, let's hope it works.) But all we can bring to Aunt Joan is a few Japanese eggplants. The eggplants are producing prolifically, which I appreciately hugely - we've already tried them in a stirfry and they taste delicious.) The Japanese variety is a huge improvement over last year's black beauties - the kind found in supermarkets. They were small and bitter. And a bigger leap over the white organics we tried to grow two years ago.
But nothing beats the home grown tomato for impressing dinner guests or bringing along when visiting. Our heirlooms inspire cries of joy, stares of disbelief and rounds of applause. Friends rarely refuse dinner invitations when our fresh tomatoes are on the menu.
So, we'll wait. And we'll hope that a random thunder storm doesn't whack off too many branches; hope we can ward off leaf blights and bug infestations; hope that this crop is a banner one.
And eventually, in just a few weeks I imagine, we'll get to pull our first tomato off the vine and slice it up. Now that's something to look forward to!
