Home grown tomatoes

Home grown tomatoes
Originally uploaded by bonbayel.

I promised I'd write about our home grown tomatoes.
Even before I moved here, a friend told me that one of the great things about living here in Southern California was that tomatoes become perenials. We've had tomato plants in pots that really did last a couple of years.

But nothing compares with our crop this year. We have just 2 plants, but this year they're large organic tomatoes planted in our new bed with their roots down in the soil which has been enriched with a year's compost.

We have tried to keep removing most of the extra shoots and I capped all the top shoots before we left for Maine, but being away just 2 weeks they've sprung out all over the place. The plants are way over the top of our garden wall, so the neighbor can enjoy the top shoots now, and whatever tomatoes go over the wall as well I guess.

Except for one that had started getting pink before we left, which we took with us to Maine, the tomatoes just started to become ripe after we got home. So far we've managed with one or two big ones a day, but they're catching up on us!

John keeps singing the song John Denver made popular, with this refrain:

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes,
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes?
There's only two things that money can't buy:
True love - and home grown tomatoes.

You can hear it here sung by the composer himself, Guy Clarke.

Tonight we had mozarello cheese, basil, black olives and home grown tomatoes for dinner!
Someday soon there will be so many that we'll have an incredibly delicious gazpacho. Mmmm!