For the last three seasons I have been growing herbs, but this year I added a couple of tomato plants. We bought them at the Havre de Grace plant sale earlier this season with the intent of planting them in a raised garden bed. They are still in their plastic store pots, and they have been doing wonderfully well. They are bearing fruit, and today I harvested my first ripe tomato. It's a roma tomato, with a thick, chewy skin and a fruit that is both tangy and tart with just a little sweetness at the end. Fresh tomatoes taste like summer to me, and they always remind me of my very early childhood. My first memories are sitting in my mother's tomato patch in the first house I lived in, picking the fruit and then cleaning it in our old kitchen and eating it on the spot. I'm quite glad to have the beginnings of my own tomato patch, even if I don't have a daughter to share it with. My first harvest was delicious and a welcome reminder of where I come from. I've got two more on the vine and the promise of more to come.
