Dreaming of Tomatoes

I am dreaming about tomatoes...I have 10 in the ground already. Should I do more? I have had great success in past years and I have been learning from my mistakes. This year I paid attention to tomatoes all over the country through garden blogs. I knew when the first ones were going into gardens in America's sunny locales, and I knew this year has had CRAZY weather and we might just be a sunny dry locale this summer. I thought the price of a few tomato plants was worth the risk of planting early.

I went to my favorite nursery, *. It was confirmed that tomatoes had been on a growers list that week but the nursery had not ordered them. Carly, the owner, thought it was too early. Some other Flowerland employees, who are also my good friends and go to gardeners for advice, assured me I should wait. I couldn't. I ventured on to the next closest nursery, .

Westbrae had some tomato starts. The usual standby varieties, nothing adventurous. I bought two four-inch Early Girls and a six pack of Sungold. I was ready to dig! In hindsight, I wish I had written down the date, so I could go back and reference it for this story but...I know myself better than to do that. At the time I would have had to have been writing down the date for me to reference, but I know I would never be consistent with such a system, or for that matter remember to go back to reference what I did write.  I garden by intuition. Someone once told me I garden by Darwinian method.

I added in the best garden compost I could find. I had bought some bags of POTting soil "for your medicinal garden." I figured what was good for cannabis would be great for my tomatoes. I planted them in my 50 gallon organic honey barrels from Cafe Fanny. The barrels heat up in the sun and are deep. Tomatoes like to have deep warm roots. These containers are perfect. The first of my tomato plants have been in the ground about a month now.   

A couple weeks later, I planted some more interesting varieties. I had been stalking Flowerland, asking once or twice a week when the tomatoes would be in. I came in to the nursery the afternoon they arrived and they had already been picked over and were mostly purchased. I bought two San Francisco fogs and something with a name that sounded cold and that said it had small tomatoes but not cherry. Small is what you need in the Bay Area. No Beefsteaks for us here! And if the name sounds like it is from a place with similar weather - your chances of a good harvest are even better.

I am dreaming, now, about my last installment of summer's finest fruit. Today I dropped into Flowerland, they had tons of beautiful tomato plants to choose from. I wanted to read the description of each one, and imagine them in my future spaghetti sauces or caprese salads. I ran out of time and decided it would be better to go without than to not have explored all my possibilities. So tonight I can just dream...of a Zebra or a Cherokee Purple, maybe a Bloody Butcher, or a Julia Child. Yes…last year Julia Child performed well for me, if I remember right. Of course, I don’t know for sure because I didn't write it down.  I know myself better than to do that.

*Okay - I must disclose that sometimes, very rarely, I work at Flowerland - and I do some internet stuff for them on an ongoing basis.