By this point in July, we usually are well into tomato season. However, each growing season is different. The spring was very cold and wet, and summer has seemed more like monsoon season, neither being ideal conditions for tomato production. Not that the plants are doing poorly; the greenhouse tomatoes have long ago reached the ceiling of our greenhouse and are taller than I. Green tomatoes peer out from under leaves at every turn. Still, though, there has been barely a blush of red.
The greenhouse looks more like a jungle these days....
Yesterday was a farm stand day, meaning the morning was spent picking lots of veggies. Literal bushels of zucchini and cucumbers, plus pecks of beans. The peas are wearing out, but that's OK, they are a cool season crop and this week of 90+ degree temps wasn't for them...besides, they had produced a fabulous harvest, despite the pruning the deer gave them some nights. Lots of good stuff, with lots more on the way- I see peppers just on the verge of picking (sometimes the hardest part is waiting that extra week or so until they get nice and big!) and as I was creeping through the greenhouse jungle in pursuit of squash and cukes, I saw a few pink orbs...tomatoes finally turning ripe. The first are slow to come on, but I know soon it will seem like an onslaught of heirloom tomatoes, the darlings of summer farm stands everywhere. But there was one, a perfect pink globe, and I couldn't resist putting it in my basket. The first tomato.
An interesting thing most folks likely don't realize is that as a farmer, I don't eat much lovely, early produce. Don't get me wrong, my meals are full of homegrown goodness. But everyone longs for the first taste of real produce, and for crops with big demand like tomatoes or sweet corn, early is money in the bank. The reality is perfect fruits sell, and that's how we make a living. A majority of customers want the perfect food they are used to in stores. Round red tomatoes with no blemish. Perfectly straight cucumbers. A small insect hole in a pepper means no one will want it, even if in reality it means it wasn't sprayed with toxic chemicals like the perfect specimens in the supermarket produce aisle. So, while my meals are full of organic goodness, we eat the peppers with holes, the cucumbers that are bent or have a crease from growing under the trellis, the tomatoes that aren't quite perfectly round. The cosmetically challenged fruits of our labor. And they taste just as good.
But yesterday, I splurged on us. I kept that tomato. The decision was made somewhat easier for two reasons- there was only one tomato, and the last/only one of anything is often a tough sell (although in this case that probably was not true!), and secondly, it was our 8-year wedding anniversary. A special occasion deserving of good, homegrown food. Served simply, I cut it up and made a salad of fresh veggies- heirloom lettuces and kale, a cool cucumber, a banana pepper I picked- although it was small, it had a bug hole so the plant didn't need to invest more energy in it- green onion and fresh tomato, topped with a bit of shredded raw milk cheese. A perfect summer salad. Not unlike many others I've made over the years, but at the same time different, and better, too.
It may have been that first tomato. But also, it was the knowledge of just how much of ourselves that salad represented. Yes, we've grown all those veggies for years, but this year was the first time that I successfully started every tomato, every pepper, every single garden plant from seed here on the farm. This is the first year we purchased absolutely no bedding plants from anywhere else. So that tomato? I nurtured it from a tiny seed, back in February. Same for the pepper. It's a pretty awesome feeling to be able to take homegrown to that level, and for many of the varieties of tomatoes & peppers, not only did I start from seed, but I started from seed that I saved myself from last year's crop. Truly, a big step in my own personal quest to preserve the idea of a historic American family farm, and to be ever-increasingly sustainable and self-sufficient. A pretty big deal to be able to do for ourselves, and yet, it's more than that, even...not only was I solely responsible for starting all the plants in our garden to feed ourselves, but I successfully started enough not just for us, but for dozens, maybe hundreds, of friends, neighbors, and visitors to the farm. Something to be proud of, for sure. So here's to the first tomato, and to many more this gardening season!
But yesterday, I splurged on us. I kept that tomato. The decision was made somewhat easier for two reasons- there was only one tomato, and the last/only one of anything is often a tough sell (although in this case that probably was not true!), and secondly, it was our 8-year wedding anniversary. A special occasion deserving of good, homegrown food. Served simply, I cut it up and made a salad of fresh veggies- heirloom lettuces and kale, a cool cucumber, a banana pepper I picked- although it was small, it had a bug hole so the plant didn't need to invest more energy in it- green onion and fresh tomato, topped with a bit of shredded raw milk cheese. A perfect summer salad. Not unlike many others I've made over the years, but at the same time different, and better, too.
It may have been that first tomato. But also, it was the knowledge of just how much of ourselves that salad represented. Yes, we've grown all those veggies for years, but this year was the first time that I successfully started every tomato, every pepper, every single garden plant from seed here on the farm. This is the first year we purchased absolutely no bedding plants from anywhere else. So that tomato? I nurtured it from a tiny seed, back in February. Same for the pepper. It's a pretty awesome feeling to be able to take homegrown to that level, and for many of the varieties of tomatoes & peppers, not only did I start from seed, but I started from seed that I saved myself from last year's crop. Truly, a big step in my own personal quest to preserve the idea of a historic American family farm, and to be ever-increasingly sustainable and self-sufficient. A pretty big deal to be able to do for ourselves, and yet, it's more than that, even...not only was I solely responsible for starting all the plants in our garden to feed ourselves, but I successfully started enough not just for us, but for dozens, maybe hundreds, of friends, neighbors, and visitors to the farm. Something to be proud of, for sure. So here's to the first tomato, and to many more this gardening season!