Better Late Than Never

My tomatoes are late to ripen this year. I almost didn’t plant a garden at all--something I’ve done every year since the Spring of 1992. Yet in June, having decided not to sell my home, I scrambled to plant the essentials: a smattering of arugula, an assortment of field greens, a few varieties of peppers, eggplant (I forgot the zucchini) and alloted the rest of my garden to tomatoes--three rows of five plants.

The tomatoes, now lush with fragrant leaves whose aroma never fails to invoke the memory of my father’s yearly garden, were now taller than me (not a large feat considering that I’m just barely 5’3”) and laden with green tomatoes, making the plants so heavy that the plastic stakes that attempted to hold them upright, tilted against their weight. I am once again reminded of my father’s garden where only tall, heavy, wooden stakes were used, far more suited to the job of holding the many vines that in 45 to 60 days would grow long, winding, thick and strong from tender, young plants of just a few inches. I marvel at the miracle of their growth--as I do each year, but especially this year when, though planted a little late, my tomato plants still thrive thanks to a healthy balance of sun and rain.

Now, so close to the time when the green fruit turns to red I grew impatient with anticipation to taste their true flavor, unavailable at any other time of the year in the Northeast. I looked forward to the many ways I would enjoy them: diced (Any variety is good but grape or cherry are the sweetest for this.) and quickly sautéed with a little oil and garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper and tossed over linguini, or sometimes made fancy with a sprinkling of goat cheese and thin slices of fresh, aromatic arugula, or my favorite: a simple salad of ripe (yet still firm) plum (or other large) tomatoes, randomly sliced along with slivers of red onions, dressed with a simple drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, salt and fresh ground peppercorns. This salad is best when allowed to rest for at least 30 minutes so the juice from the tomatoes gets infused with the oil, then tossed just before serving, adjusting the seasoning and topped with torn bits of fresh basil or parsley…yum. Like this, the fruit of this miracle plant is best appreciated.

But alas, I’m a week or more away from this treat and when my impatience fails to make them ripen any faster, I head down to the farmer’s market to buy already ripen tomatoes from other farmers who, more committed to their garden than I was this year, did not plant late.