Tomatoes: The Fruits and Labors of My Love

heirloom tomatoes

I think just about everyone loves tomatoes. Every time I mention to someone that I grow tomatoes in my garden they immediately turn a little green with envy. Tomatoes are really a labor of love. Some years the bounty is great and in others you're lucky to pick just a few. Last year there was the blight and this summer it's blossom end rot due to the extreme variations in heat. Luckily my tomatoes haven't been affected by that but since I am growing them organically, I do often find a critter who has made a home inside one of my prized possessions. I guess that just shows I'm not the only one who loves them.

This year I'm growing heirlooms for the first time. I collected seeds from my favorite specimens last year to grow this crop. All plants were babied from seed. They all seem to be doing well, but heirlooms have their own peculiarities including odd shapes, split skins, and areas with russeting or blemishes. Nut I would rather tend to them than grow the supermarket hybrids, which tend to look more like plastic. Though I do like a beefsteak tomato now and then. I don't even bother growing plum tomatoes because I can't get them any better than the canned San Marzano variety from Italy, where the weather and terroir is optimal for growing them. But so far my soil has given me a pretty nice colorful collection.

heirloom tomatoes

I cannot imagine summer without tomatoes. The juiciness, sweetness, and acidity all culminate in one delicious vegetable or fruit? Botanists define fruit as ovaries bearing the seeds of flowering plants. So, yes, tomatoes are fruits. That's even if we almost always enjoy them in savory applications, they are after all sweet and juicy, much more like a fruit than say a turnip? By U.S. law though, they are considered vegetables due to a decision to impose a duty on vegetables in 1893 when the Supreme Court decided to include tomatoes in that tariff. So tomatoes are officially vegetables in this country. Maybe that's why the USDA considers ketchup a vegetable along with French fries for balanced school lunches.

In Europe tomatoes are considered fruits. And they have been a pretty popular fruit since the 16th century when they first showed up on ships coming back from the Americas. Tomatoes originally came from the New World, specifically South America. Corn, peppers, and potatoes also originated from the Americas. These vegetables made it to the Old World as a result of Spanish exploration. At first many thought tomatoes were poisonous, which is what they thought of the entire nightshade family, which tomatoes and eggplant belong to. It took a while for them to be eaten and enjoyed in cooking.

Tomatoes were already being enjoyed in Spain, but in France it took some clever marketing to make them sell. A clever marketing guru originally coined tomatoes pommes d'amour or apples of love, claiming that the fruit was an aphrodisiac. I guess so. After all they're mostly blood red and juicy. A fruit to excite deep-seated lust and passion? Eventually tomatoes spread to Italy and sauce was born. But can you imagine if tomatoes didn't make it to the Old World? What we would do without tomato sauce? Our pizzas and pastas would be vastly different.

So thank goodness for tomatoes. Our world cuisines would never be so good without them. And our summers could never be so enjoyable without juicy tomatoes freshly picked from the vine. That is all I need to enjoy them. Or if I'm in the mood a little salt and olive oil drizzled on some thinly sliced red fruit. How do you like to enjoy your tomatoes. Share your ideas, recipes, or gardening tips in the comments below.

This summer I'm participating in A Way to Garden's Third Annual Summer Fest. Every Wednesday a summer produce will be the theme. This Wednesday it's tomatoes. To participate all you have to do is something as simple as leaving a comment or linking to a favorite blog post or informational site. You can share gardening tips, recipes, and/or pictures. Visit the Summer Fest link for more information. Many other blogs are participating and it would be great to see how far the conversation goes.

My favorite recipes using tomatoes:
Panzanella Bread Salad with Summer Corn and Heirloom Tomatoes
Gazpacho
Heirloom Tomato Salad
Cherry Tomato salad

Comments

  1. OH those look so yummy. I wish we could grow tomatoes here and other things. can't grow much of anything here the season is way to short.. U R LUCKY

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  2. Your bounty is beauteous! Especially the purpley ones. I think you should pair these with some good burratta, olive oil, salt, pepper, and basil. Mmm!

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  3. I really love my tomatoes! This is one of my favorite plants in my garden. They always give me joy when ever they produce a lot and really healthy ones. I always make salsa out of them of baked them then put in a burger. I just tried a recipe that I found in a blog, the tomato egg pie. It is really delicious.

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  4. That really looks yummy! My tomatoes are not perfect because of the splitting on it. I don’t know why it goes like that. They say that it’s because of the changing weather here in our place. That’s why I am envy of your tomatoes. They are really perfecta and reddish.

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  5. Those are perfect except for the splitting thing on the surface of the tomatoes. My tomatoes are also like those. They say that it is because of the acid rain that pours in the tomatoes.

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