The Glory Days of Tomatoes Arrive!

OK, I fess up. Since I signed up to cultivate a community garden plot at Greenwich Community Gardens, I focused on tomatoes -- big, small, yellow, red, ripe, unripe. At last the tomatoes came in, and I am doing a happy dance. My husband and I bite into tomato-stacked BLTs. We savor fresh tomato salads with garlic, salt, basil and onions (he adds bread to his to make panzanella). And today I make a salad of my fresh-grown tomato and scallion for breakfast, starting out my day perfectly.

I decide to make something special with my dozens of cherry tomatoes. I hunt in my recipe folder for a cherry tomato tart that I found in People magazine in late March. I squirreled away the recipe back then, and today I dig in to make the recipe.
 

I ripen dozens of cherry tomatoes in paper bags on the counter, hand-select the brightest cherries, pack them into a pie shell, cover them with parmesan and egg concoction, then bake at 375 degrees, adding another 4-5 minutes under the broiler to brown the cheese and tomatoes. The tart is delicious, the roasted cherries bursting with flavor and juice! Next time, I will forgo the crust and instead make a crustless quiche filled with cherry tomatoes, ample cheese and a side of asparagus.

My garden is overflowing with small and big tomatoes, and I go in search of help. My great-niece Ceci — wearing a Girls Rule T-shirt — answers my call for a super-hero helper. With her four-year-old enthusiasm, she carries the bag to collect the vegetables, acts as a spotter for the ripening cherry tomatoes and carefully twists off the big tomatoes. She then takes charge of watering the roots and tomatoes so the garden stays healthy. As we walk through the garden, looking at the other beds, she eagerly introduces herself to new people she meets, reeling off her first name and her last name. Her visit and willingness to be my helper give me naches -- pride and joy, for those of you who want to learn Yiddish. I'll invite her to pitch in again before her pre-school starts. 



Before I leave the garden, I take stock again of the vegetables. The tomatoes are bountiful, and the basil is getting big. On the other hand, my seven pepper trees are unimpressive, producing only four peppers since I planted them. Same with my cucumber plant, which produces only three pickle-size cukes. And my long-awaited patty-pan squash plants blossom lavishly, but yield no squash. Curses!

I keep on, however. Based on Alan Gorkin's visit to the community garden two weeks ago, I plant a series of late summer vegetables -- Tavera beans, Blue Lake bush beans, radishes and arugula. I also keep planting scallions rooted at home, and today I plant a rooted fennel. We'll see if they can tolerate the remaining summer heat and grow out before our first frost.

Community gardeners: 

• What do you make with your tomatoes? 

• How do you take advantage of your bounty? 

• What other vegetables grow abundantly? 

• What will you do differently next year?

A reminder: This blog gets picked up locally in Connecticut, gets shared with friends and family through Facebook and Google+ and gets retweeted on the Twitter feed of NYC Community Gardens. Join the conversation! -- Diane Tunick Morello