Tomato Summer

With thirteen bountiful tomato plants in the garden, all growing ferociously for the past nine or ten weeks, it's been a very tomatoey summer.

Several nights a week, there's been a plate of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil drizzled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

There's been fish with tomatoes.

There was gazpacho, seen here in its pre-blended state.

I canned whole Cherokee Purple tomatoes.

I canned tomato sauce with fresh basil.

I baked loaves and loaves of almost-no-knead bread to sop up tomato juice left on the plate.

I admired bowls of tomatoes on the countertop all summer long.

And now, somehow, August is turning into September, the plants are slowing down production, and we're digging up the grass next to the garden to expand it for the fall. Soon we'll pull out all the tomato plants and replace them with kale, or maybe spinach, or broccoli. It's been a pleasure to watch the tomato stalks grow, and grow, and grow, and blossom into these beautiful fruits, and finally land in the kitchen, all of thirty feet from where they started out.