and now it is February

And my thoughts turn to Summer and tomatoes. I can't help it. Growing tomatoes in England is a hit and miss affair. Some summers just aren't hot enough and unless you grow them in compost inside a greenhouse, you might get only one week of tomatoes in August.

But still...the taste of a sun-warmed, vine-ripened, freshly plucked home grown tomato is incomparable. Like wine, it's not a sensation just for the palate. There's the sight of ripening tomatoes on the vine, the cheery redness (or bright gold - if you prefer), the dumpling darling with its curling green star-shaped cap hanging from the stem. Then there's the feel - the tiny hairs on the leaves tickling your hand as you reach through the foliage for the treasure within, and then the smooth, near-to-bursting silky skin stretched over firm plumpness of the fruit. The smell. I love almost every smell of the tomato - from the earthy-promise scent of the leaves to warm semi-metallic tang of the ripe fruit. I don't so much like the smell of rotting tomatoes - that's the sad scent of a missed opportunity. The sound? - well, there's the sound of someone getting to that ripe tomato before you - "mmmm," they say "that's good." I always make sure I'm the first to taste my own tomatoes.

But more must be said of the the taste:

A tomato is supposed to taste like a tomato, which eliminates 98 percent of the ones in stores, which are bred for shelf life and durability, not taste. When you hold a tomato and you breathe the stem, you should get a good keen whiff of tomato. They call real tomatoes "heirloom" tomatoes to distinguish them from the Styrofoam kind, but they're pretty rare. And so the younger generation is forgetting what a tomato tastes like, and in another 20 years, you'll be able to sell them kumquats labeled "tomato" and this beloved staple will be gone forever. - Garrison Keillor

I used to grow tomatoes in pots against the brick wall at the top of my garden, just below my kitchen windows. But as that spot is next to the down spout - the tomatoes gave way for a water butt in preparation for the hosepipe ban we had in London last summer. Plus, I the tomato growing was less than successful the previous year. I'm not ruthless enough with the pinching back and everything got a little out of control. And I bought some tumbling tomatoes - designed to grow in hanging baskets - which certainly satisfied the visual and olfactory elements of growing tomatoes (they were awful pretty in the basket) but they tasted like February store-bought tomatoes. So last year I grew no tomatoes.


Overgrown tomato plants and the water butt and garden pond.


But this year, a new spot has opened up in the garden. Thanks to the piscine disaster - the hottiest, sunniest spot in my backyard will soon be free. Yes, it will take a bit of preparation. How many holes do I need to drill in the bottom of the plastic pond to create suitable drainage? How many bags of potting soil will I need to fill the darn thing up? How many tomato plants should I plant in the old pond? (Three or four, I've decided)

But most importantly what kind should I get? I've been pouring over the seed catalogues which are stuffed through a gardener's letterbox like a dealer pushes samples to schoolchildren. Should I get midsized, terminal, bush, branching, yellow, red, stripy, heirloom, purple, bell-shaped or cherry? What will guarantee me copious amounts of delicious juicy, ripe tomatoes?

You may remember Garrison Keillor's tomato sketch, "you'd kill for a
vine ripe tomato in January, not those things they strip mine down in
Texas but real tomatoes - then by August it is leaving bags on neighbor's
door stoop "pick them and bring them in. maybe they will crawl into
the jars by themselves" - U. of Florida Sustainable Agriculture Discussion
forum.

I've never had copious amounts of tomatoes in England. I'd love a bumper crop though clearly flavor trumps quantity. I'm going to write the American fellow at Pennard Plants soon and get his advice - they sell vegetable seeds - and perhaps he could suggest a carefully planned cornucopia of container grown vegetables.

And any reader advice is welcome, too.