I have been painting but that is not what I want to show you this morning. Remember back in April when I showed you the new garden bed I was digging? There is a big fat red champion in that garden I would like you to meet.
We already ate his bigger cousin sliced thick with fresh basil, sea salt and hand ground black pepper on homemade oat and honey bread. Soooo good! But this fellow is a good size as well. Let’s get a bit of a closer look.
Yep looks and feels delicious.
Our recent warm spell has started these tomatoes ripening on the vine. They are only two weeks behind those grown in local organic greenhouses. We have those huge fir trees all around us and this is the most sun I could find in the yard within the deer fence. So I decided to give it a try. I’m impressed because the sun doesn’t reach the plot until 10:00 am and it is in the shade again by 4:00 pm.
Look at that – a full 3.5 inches across. The small tag in the ground tells me these are Champion Tomatoes. I have four kinds of tomatoes growing. There are these big guys, a patio tomato and two kinds of tomatoes that volunteered from the compost I put down.
We are also eating baby carrots and green beans. The lettuce greens and peas are about finished and I have lots to dill for salads. However, it is these large plump tomatoes that really make me smile. This fall I will double the size of this garden bed for next year.
Delightful and supportive Leah Piken Kolidas is hosting the theme of FIRE for the month of August at Creative Everyday. I think these large plump red tomatoes qualify.
History tip: Did you know that in the early 1930s Japanese farmers of Active Pass Growers Association had eight acres of tomatoes under glass and produced 50 tons of tomatoes a year for the city of Vancouver B.C.? Source – Mayne Island & The Outer Gulf Islands A History by Marie Elliott.
Sprout Question: What creative gifts has the heat of summer warmed for you?
Note: Creative Potager has a new page Artist Biography and a post announcing my solo exhibition “SEA, LAND AND TIME.” Please share both as appropriate.
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From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada
Creative Potager 
Wow! Great Looking Tomatoes. I’ll be checking your cooler when you get here next week 🙂
I do hope to have a couple to bring along for sure Jose… both big and little ones and maybe even a few carrots:) Going to be so much fun picking blackberries and going kayaking and just hanging out.
Measuring the tomato with the ruler brought a big smile to my face.
The lack of wonderful tomatoes in the world is a bit heartbreaking for me. I always grew a bounty of tomatoes and all sorts of beautiful produce growing up in illinois. Its a delight to see the “fruits” of your labors.
jerry
Jerry I am sure it was quite a site as I crunched down, clad in my garden clogs and white cotton nightie, balancing my heavy canon EOS 40D in one hand and holding out the ruler in the other. Fortunately there was only a doe deer and her twin fawns to see me… thankfully they were on the other side of the deer fence! You are right good tomatoes are not easily to find – that tang and fragrance which makes our mouths water! Yum! Thanks for stopping in:)
Congratulations. You know what, gardening is also a kind of art. I am painting through synesthesia which makes me see colors when I hear names and numbers. These colors I transform in paintings. Colors are my life.
Cecilia welcome to Creative Potager. I just watch a video clip on your website about how you paint. I have always felt that colours were my life as well. You give me a new and deeper understanding about what that can mean. I have few posts that explore how we see which also includes this post https://creativepotager.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/perspective-canada-day. Your experience through synesthesia adds to this discussion. Thank you for coming by and I hope you drop in again.
Terrill – It’s almost 6pm here, time to go home, — but I quickly opened your post as a treat. And me-oh-my, what a treat it is! Now I’m not only starving, I’m SALIVATING! Those are GORGEOUS tomatoes.
Sprout Question: What creative gifts has the heat of summer warmed for you?
New to us this year, we have “Egyptian Walking Onions” and they’re the BIG guys in our garden. And they taste delicious! In the evenings we’ve been enjoying an easy salad of: diced cucumber, diced tomatoes, diced onions, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, dill, basil, and then stirring it all together with a bit of rice vinegar, red wine vinegar, and cider vinegar combined.
Oh Laurie… now I’m salivating! I have some little onions that grow their bulbs on their heads… I think they might be malnourished relatives to your big guys. Safe trip home to ya! And thanks for your sprout:)
oh, those tomatoes totally qualify. they’re gorgeous!!
Yes, indeed, you have a lovely champion! They are so good and sweet and wonderful fresh out of the garden, aren’t they? We had one (with sliced cucumbers) on a tuna fish & roasted red pepper & green onion sandwich tonight when we got home. It’s good to be catching up on your great blog posts.
Kathy, I just might go pick this one to have with our supper tonight. I hope you enjoy browsing around as much as I did poking along with you on your recent travels.
Ooooh, lovely! Here in Montana even in the hoophouse few tomatoes are ripening due to cold high altitude nights this summer, was 38 degrees the other morning for crying out loud! I usually have avalanches of red tomatoes, but this year I have to look at pictures like yours…
Lexi, I do hope it warms up so you can have some delicious red tomatoes of your own. Pictures are okay but they just aren’t as satisfying s biting into a sun-ripened beauty.
Sprout Answer: The ability to be layed back, not to care. I waffle into thinking lazy, but for me, lazy isn’t a desireable trait–or it hasn’t been. Though, lazy, un-driven seems like the simplest road. I will not know the outcome, until out it comes. It does feel very odd to have a winter in the middle of a hot and melting summer. Everything feels foggy, hazy, out of sharp lustful focus, seductively sliding along. (oh wait, i think i’ve inspired me roflmao) Thanks!
Terrill I going tell you a short story that happened this year. Jane plant two tomatoes plants in plant container and placed them on the back deck. Over the summer the plants produced 60 tomatoes averaging in size of approxiate. 2 inches . Still counting.
Second part of the story I tried an old trick that I had seen many years ago by planting tomatoes plants in containers in the garden. Advantage, little watering but has to be done ever day as the plants can not get the water required to give good quality fruit. 17 pots in all. It worked, guess what no digging. which Jane did not want me to do. She had a trick , More sun where her plants were located. Wait till next year. The plants are still producing but frost is coming quick. All the best with you garden next year. PS NICE TOMATOES AND AN INTERESTING LAUGH AND EXPERIMENT.
Thank you Robert for dropping in and leaving a story behind. More sun for tomatoes is always good:)