I feel your pain! I tried the same thing once and it took me just one season to figure out that it's enough of a struggle to keep my beloved flowers going ... let the farmers worry about the edible crops. Besides, I live a mile from Robert Treat Farm, a local farmer's market. They have the absolute best corn, cucumbers, lettuces and tomatoes. I do my part to keep them in business.

Molie

Count your blessings, lol! I have had a total of seven ripe tomatoes so far this season. That's it. And considering I started selling at the farmer's market this year, that ain't good! Can't wait for the dern things to ripen!

:)
Dee

Yum yum yum...we haven't got our fill of tomatoes yet. Have a steady supply of Cherries and the larger ones haven't ripened yet, just starting to turn pink.

I couldn't be without a tomato plant. And I would LOVE to have enough to give away. Have large containers with tomato plants, a few peppers in containers and more zuchinni then we know what to do with. Giving that away! I had one plant last year and didn't get enough so I planted three this year, too much. Next year will try two.

I guess I lean toward enjoying growing crops any way, so I guess I am not much help..lol. I enjoy the taste of my own tomatoes so much, that when I buy them in the store, they just taste so tasteless and I don't even want to eat them.

And to me they couldn't be easier. I bought a seedling, put potting soil with a good amount of compost into a container, put the plant in, put a cage around it, and have hardly touched it aside from watering since it went in. It just about takes care of itself. I might have fertilized it with liquid seaweed once all season.

My mother and I used to eat Tomato with sliced cucumber sandwhiches with mayo until they were coming out of our ears...have never had ONE year that I had too many tomatoes and got sick of them in the past 25...LOL.

See how different we all are..?

Is there any kind of crop that you would enjoy so much you wouldn't get sick of it? Strawberries, or something? Maybe you just don't like tomatoes?

Adam

Sounds like the reason we gave up growing zucchini!

Well, we have lots of cherry tomatoes but none of the larger varieties are red yet. I still have to buy them from the local farm...

Yesterday we had buttermilk biscuits with slices of tomatoes and cheddar cheese...I could never get sick of those!!

Congrats on your harvest. As Galileo said..at least it's not zucchini. You can't even give those away around here :-)

Ellen

I didn't plant any cherries this year, so I had my first tomato out in the yard yesterday. I freely admit that I didn't bring it into the house because I didn't want to share it.

I just hope the weather holds long enough for me to get sick of tomatoes this year.

I gave away another pound and a half today....

I wish the cucumber plants had produced so much! I really like cucumbers. I think the soil I planted them in was just too fertile. I made a raised bed and then mixed Miracle Grow Garden soil, earthworm castings, aged compost (castings and compost were ordered from Gardens Alive), and peat moss. I also sprayed all of the plants in my garden (veggies and flowers) with Spray and Grow -- which I bought from QVC over the winter. I planted 'Moulin Rouge' Sunflowers in the same soil -- each stalk has 20 - 30 flowers -- and it's still spitting them out too.
Hmmmmm.... I wonder if I planted a dollar bill out there -- would it reproduce like the tomatoes and sunflowers?
--Kelly (who still doesn't like tomatoes)

Dear GaelicGardener - My husband found this lovely ill-formed Stupice tomato, yesterday.
Along with a friend from out-of-town, this is what we did.
{{gwi:1088350}}
Hope it makes your day!
Best,
PP

Kelly, you could borrow my-three-year old son to take care of your tomato problem. I can't even get near my vines. He's in the garden every day vacuuming down anything approaching ripe! Luckily for me, I grew my cherry toms. on a trellis, so I get a few he can't reach. He's also very handy for consuming cucs, swiss chard, carrots, peas and pole beans (all raw, of course). He's even beaten me to most of the broccoli. Not even the nasturtiums are safe!

I'll never do cherries again. I planted one a few years ago, and it was like the little shop of horrors plant. It overgrew everything, dropped a zillion new ripe ones a day. Even the birds got sick of them. I'm with you as far and the smaller ones are concerned. I do like the larger varieties. I planted two of those this year, and am just now getting to the "bring some to work" stage. Yum.

Don't plant cherries, usually just beefsteak types. Usually I do 3 plants but reduced it to 2 this year - I'm lucky if I have a dozen tomatoes on both plants combined! Don't know what the problem is this year, but the plants are half the size they usually are. My first ones just turned red the past couple days. Usually I have them by the end of July.

Slice up some fresh mozarella, layer the cheese slices with slices of fresh tomato, sprinkle on some slivered fresh basil and drizzle the whole thing with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper - you won't hate tomatoes anymore!! (You can chunk the cheese instead of slicing and halve the cherries and toss to combine if you don't have slicing tomatoes to make the layers.)

Lisa

Recommend, for those who kinda like cherry tomatoes but not a zillion of them: Balconi Red tomatoes (seeds from Thompson & Morgan). I bought seeds about 5 years ago, and have been saving seeds ever since, with very high germination rates.

Plants are nice and stocky, can be indoor sown or wintersown, virtually bullet proof. Plants can be grown in hanging baskets, and they don't get too big; produce nice, reasonable crop of cherries. Flavor is good enough for me, although I don't claim to be a connoisseur.

I tried Mortage Lifter this year-yum! I have been eating them for lunch with basil from the yard and Fig and Meyer's Lemon balsamic vinegar that I get at Idylewile in Boxborough. One tomato makes a nice sized lunch.

I also grew one Micro Tom-it is about 6 inches tall with tiny tomatoes. I had 2 almost ready to eat and the darned chippies got them first. I was so mad that I dug up the plant and put it in a pot. I want to bring it in the greenhouse this fall, so I'm going to baby it until then.

I am having the same problem as Terryboc. The chipmunks keep getting my tomatoes. Usually, I might add, the night before I was going to pick them! So I am jealous of all the people with big harvests so far. A good problem to have in my book...

Well, I best get out there and pick some tomatoes for my late breakfast. Ellen, I love the sounds of your biscuits, tomatoes and cheddar. Last night I went to make sweet biscuits for strawberry shortcake and found I was out of baking powder. Now I really need to get to the store - for my biscuits - sweet and savory.

For lunch the other day, I had tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh romaine, and a little mozzarella cheese with balsamic vinegar.

For breakfast yesterday, it was tomatoes with fresh ground sea salt. I tell myself the minerals from the sea salt are good for me. :-)

The hot peppers are just about ready. Time for some fresh salsa.

Tomatoes - yum!

I only planted two cherries as by trial and error, that is all my family can eat. I have many different varities that supposedly ripen at different times, but they all seemed to ripen at once with this hot, sunny dry weather. Everywhere I go, farmer's markets are unloading their tons of tomatoes for reasonable $$. I guess you should make sauce or can them. As long as I don't get those mouth canker sores, I'm not eating too many!

Recommend to those who don't like a zillion cherries:

Move in next to me! I'll happily eat your zillion cherries and you can pick all the flowers you want from my wall of lilacs, coreopsis gang, or anything else.

I am a flower gardener, but have planted veggies on occaision. Last year I bought one heirloom tomatoe plant to grow in a bucket, but it died. I bought another and it too died. Not sure why, but I might have used bagged manure instead of potting soil..that's the only thing I can figure out.

This year I bought a 6 pack of tomatoes early in the spring, didn't keep them watered so they shriveled up but I watered them anyway. Three lived so I decided to plant them in my flower garden as I had very few annuals and wanted to fatten the garden up. I also planted some type of bean that I grew as a vine last year. The majority of this years garden is recycled..plants that reseeded themselves in the "compost" next to the sidewalk curbs, some in the garden itself.

Both have taken over my garden and I don't have 1 ripe tomatoe to show for it.

So count your blessings, or send them to me LOL. I can't wait to taste a MA grown tomatoe!

We're still waiting for our's to ripen up. I don't much care for tomatoes unless they're fresh. You can keep those rock hard babies designed to be mechanically havested and fired into a truck at 30mph, then shipped cross country for our "delight"; they sure don't taste good!

But you've stated my sentiments exactly on Zucchini and Summer squash. Mercifully, the helpmeet has restricted himself to plant 1-2 of each.

There is nothing like a frshly sliced tomato, fresh Mozzarella cheese, fresh Basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegrette. Mmmm-mmm... , or freshly prepared Marinara sauce.

Hostaz-
As a long-time sufferer of the dreaded canker-sore, and a former firm believer in the 'don't-eat-acid-foods' myth, I can offer you this tip:

Canker sores do not develop due to increased acidic food intake. They are caused by a lack of calcium, believe it or not. Got this info from my dentist.

So get out the milk jug, pour it over some blueberries, and drink-up! Also, if you like yogurt, buy stock in it. It helps tremendously!

Here's to a canker-free mouth! Cheers!

I second Chelones fresh tomato with basil and mozzarella. I grew Brandywine this year and they are AWESOME!!! I also have Legend which is good and very bountiful and Gold Medal which is kind of stingy but will get the prize for biggest tomato. I was underwhelmed last year when I grew Big Boy and one of the Cherokees. I think the lack of heat last year was really to blame. My father grew tomatos when I was young so I have always known that there is nothing like homegrown.

Tomatoes with basil and mozzarella sounds sooo good!

I haven't had a single ripe tomato yet this year. Even the cherries and grapes are totally green. Feel free to send some of your surplus my way, Gaelic! :o)

Cute tomato people, PPennypacker!

I brought in another pound and a half to the teacher's lounge at the school where I'm student teaching....

There are still tons of green ones out there ripening as I type. There are even still some flowers on the plant. Does that mean that they are going to turn into tomatoes too?

Does anyone know how to do sun dried tomatoes? Do I just let them sit in the sun as is? Or do I have to cut them? How long do they sit there? I made a really good cornbread with sun dried tomatoes, basil, bacon, red onions (sauteed in the bacon grease), and romano cheese. I'd eat the tomatoes that way.

I wish I could get the local wildlife to eat some of the tomatoes. The squirrels are too busy with my sunflowers. I don't think chipmunks would dare come to my neighborhood. The birds ignore the tomotoes I leave out for them. The pigeons won't even eat them and they'll eat anything. I wish we had some seagulls in our neighborhood -- they'd eat them.

Any of you who envy my tomato predicament are more than welcome to come and eat to your heart's content in my garden. Just don't step on the flowers please. : )

Lisa and cat2 - did I send you tomato seeds? If I did, How did you like them?

We just canned our 3rd batch of stewed tomatoes. That makes 21 quarts and we're nowhere near done. :-P Good thing my husband likes to help.

Maryanne in WMass

Just finished the last of the Brandywine Sudduth for lunch today - two sandwiches on squooshy white bread with mayo and salt. One thick slice on each sandwich - yum.

Lisa and cat2 - did I send you tomato seeds? If I did, How did you like them?

We just canned our 3rd batch of stewed tomatoes. That makes 21 quarts and we're nowhere near done. :-P Good thing my husband likes to help.

Maryanne in WMass

Go to epicurious.com and search for recipes containing roasted tomatoes. Sort results by "forks". Browse thru the 4 and 3 fork recipes. Most roast tom recipes (soups, sauces, relishes...and even toms just drizzled with garlic and olive oil and roasted) can be frozen and will bring a bit of summer into December and January meals.