The First Tomatoes of 2014

Tricia picked the first 3 homegrown tomatoes off the vines yesterday.  The one on top is a Pink Brandywine tomato and the two on the bottom are Black Krim tomatoes.  I spotted a few stink bugs on the tomatoes and that is not good.  Stink bugs are by far the worst pest we have in the garden.  I'm doing an experiment remedy to try to repel them and I'll share that with you along with the results in a few days.

One thing I'm also trying is to pick some when they start turning from green to pink and bring them inside and put in a brown paper bag with newspaper and allow them to finish ripening indoors to try and save them from stink bug damage.  We have a few chickens and a guinea rooster that can fly into the garden as well. They love eating tomatoes.  You'll pick a tomato that looks perfect (from the top) only to turn it over and find that the chickens have pecked out the entire middle of the fruit.

Pink Brandywine & Black Krim

Tricia has a nifty knife that is made especially for slicing tomatoes and she went to work cutting the Pink Brandywine up.

Nice looking tomato

It looks just like a big, red slab of meat.  Tricia and Russ sprinkle salt on them and eat them up and talk about how delicious they are.  Time for a confession:  They look so good and I would like to like them, but for some reason, I don't like raw tomato unless it is in pico de gallo (salsa).  I know.  That admission is almost a sacrilege, isn't it?

Big hunk 'o Tomato

Once that one was finished off, they sliced up the Black Krim.  The Black Krim tomato has green "shoulders."  According to Tricia, the Black Krim is her favorite variety.

Black Krim, sliced and ready to eat

Isn't that pretty?

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a bountiful harvest as we'd like to stew and can a bunch, make and can tomato sauce and salsa, and then have enough to eat plain and make pico de gallo and a Greek Tomato Salad that Tricia likes to make.

I wanted to share a nice little song with you about Homegrown Tomatoes that I think you'll enjoy.  The song is by Guy Clark and I've cut and pasted the lyrics to the song below, appropriately in bold red font!  Click the picture and have a listen.  I'm told that it even sounds better if you are eating a homegrown tomato while you're listening.

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden

Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one

Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with eggs, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the side put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes