I’ve had a tomato explosion out there!  While on vacation, my tomato plants went on a rampage and just took over the entire bed they were in.  They are spilling out onto the patio and the yard.  Usually, I have a really hard time growing tomatoes.  The weather won’t cooperate and getting the right amount of water on them is difficult.

Who knew that this year would have the perfect weather to allow the plants to go crazy?  And they would pick my vacation to explode everywhere.  I wasn’t here to pick them up and redirect the vines into the best places to hang.  I doubt that my son has any idea what to do with a tomato plant.  He doesn’t even like tomatoes.

I attempted to pick up the heavier branches and to get these off the ground.  It was too late to handle it in a good way.  I just had to deal with it as best as possible.  It’s definitely not stopping the tomatoes from growing and ripening though.

A couple of days after we returned, I was able to harvest the first set of cherry tomatoes from the vine.  They were warm and sweet.  I swear you can taste the sunshine in them.  I’m not a big tomato fan.  But when they come straight from the vine, I do love them.  There is nothing better to define summer than a vine-ripened tomato.

The other day, I finally picked one of the beefsteak tomatoes after it had ripened.  I served it up with dinner and it was delicious.  It went perfectly with the sweet corn that we bought from someone at work.  Two garden fresh items at one sitting.  I do love summer.

The bad news is that Sascha has discovered the tomatoes.  She has been picking the cherry tomatoes off the vine and playing with them.  Then she discovered that you could eat them and she loved the flavor.  Now I find her with her head buried in the vines picking them all over the place.  Until yesterday, she was only bothering the cherry tomatoes.  Then I found a small green tomato pulled off the vine and lying in the driveway.  I have to convince her that tomatoes are bad for dogs.  Bad dog!  Bad tomatoes!

As summer continues for the next month or so, I hope to enjoy more tomatoes.  I have a couple of people who have asked for any surplus tomatoes.  So I’ll be able to share the warm sunshine buried in the tomatoes with others.