The weather is doing a pretty good impression of winter right now, so I’m glad I was able to pick the first tomatoes this morning. The first tomatoes always feel a bit summery.
As I thought they might, the gardeners’ delight ripened first, perhaps because they’re the smallest and pack such a concentrated range of flavours into their tight little skins.
We’re growing three other tomato varieties at the same time – golden sunrise, moneymaker and marmande – but whether inside the greenhouse, out in the fruit bed or lined up in pots along the path, their produce remains entirely green.
These five – the first 65g of this year’s crop – made it into today’s sandwich, along with some leaves from lettuces five and six. We’ve numbered all of the lettuces so that we can keep track of which one we should be eating at any time, knowing that 1 and 2 were planted first, 3 and 4 a few weeks later and 5 and 6 last, ensuring we had a supply of fresh lettuce right through the summer. Plants 1 and 2 have now gone to seed after several weeks of productive use, and 3 and 4 are heading that way too, so it looks like we’re starting on the last of this year’s home-grown leaves, unless we can squeeze in another two new plants before the end of the season.
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