Tomato Season

I feel like the work that I put into expanding and developing a bigger garden this year has paid off at least in terms of the tomatoes. Back in late April, a friend and I (if you remember from an earlier blog post) basically made and added three longish rows to my garden, then I filled them in with lots of bags of good organic compost and soil. I would say in total this year I spent a good $70 on seeds (even though I didn't actually buy them, but had a gift card) and on the compost and soil, but feel like I am getting my money's worth or close to breaking even. Anyway, in those three rows I planted 14 tomato plants in total and then there were about five or six other plants planted in other locations.

The pictures at the top of this post show a little bit of the tomatoes that have been harvested by myself and others (while we were gone on our trip). The Igleheart Yellow Cherry Tomatoes in particular have been very prolific and the plants have gotten quite large and almost impossible to contain and some of the vines basically on the ground, but still producing! These are delicious yellow cherry tomatoes that are very sweet when ripe, but still with a kick of that acidity tomato flavor that are amazing! With these types of cherry tomatoes (yellow or orange and sweet) not to mention mine are organic going for $4-6 a pound, I think I am doing pretty well with haven gotten probably 5-6 pounds so far. I have shared some with others too because that is one of the greatest joys of gardening for me is to share plants and especially part of my delicious harvest!

The pictures above also show three of the other varieties that I have grown: Ukrainian Purple Tomatoes that are quite juicy, meaty and have a nice sweet, with a refined taste. There is a picture of a Pink Brandywine that is one of my favorite tomatoes that are big and sweet. Also, you can see some Red Amish Paste tomatoes that are a Roma tomato type that are also quite juicy, meaty, and have a great traditional tomato taste!

The above pictures are of the Dr. Wyche's Yellow Tomato, a new variety that I grew this year. I haven't gotten too many off of the one plant and it didn't ripen until almost the end of August, but it has been worth the wait! I love the color and the taste is very sweet, almost a tropical flavor to it! It has easily become one of my favorites if not my favorite larger tomato breeds. A little bit of history on this type is that Dr. Wyche is a man that once owned a circus and used elephant manure to fertilize his garden with in which he developed this tomato.

Finally, I wanted to say that I do plan on posting more about my trip in Seoul Korea from this summer, but things have been busy with the semester starting and I just had to post about the tomatoes. So even if I don't break even financially this summer with them, I am counting this as a successful year. I hope to keep expanding and next year have even more!

Below you can see a picture of some of the tomatoes, a small pepper (the only one I have used), and some garlic that was harvested earlier. You can also see a small mixture I made with those things, plus basil leaves from the garden, and olive oil that I put in some pasta.