This year’s crop of tomatoes hasn’t been terribly spectacular.

I’ve only been trying to grow my own tomatoes for a few years. When I was a kid, we often tried to have a garden. The frequency with which we moved because of my dad’s work in the oil field (ten elementary schools, four states) often sabotaged such efforts. My grandparents and at least one great-grandmother always, always had a garden, so when I would visit in the summer and early fall we got to eat lots of fresh vegetables.

My first year I tried one cherry tomato plant in a planter. It allowed me to start it in the spring when the weather is liable to turn cold unexpectedly, so I could keep the planter next to one of the brick walls of the house for the early season (the bricks radiating heat throughout much of the night, you see).

It did reasonably well. There were a number of weeks where I could pick a handful or more of tomatoes every single night.

So last year I upped it to three plants, and since I quite enjoyed the bite-sized tomatoes, I got two different breeds of cherry tomato and one grape. That didn’t go so well. One cherry tomato produced fairly well, but the other two were quite disappointing.

So this year I got one cherry tomato, and two different small tomatoes. One is an heirloom yellow. Again, the cherry tomato plant hit a pattern where it has reliably had a handful or more of ripe tomatoes ready for me every night. The middle-sized tomato plant has given me about four (yes, total) tomatoes that made it to ripe (dozens of green ones that would fall off long before they got ripe, though).

And the heirloom? Well, just as each tomato starts to turn, a black fungus start growing on the tomato. I managed to pull three or four off of it before they got the fungus, and let them ripen for another bunch of days on my window sill inside.

The heirloom is clearly dying, now. Though we’re supposed to have a whole week of warmer than normal temps, I think it’s done.

Of course, the one faithful cherry has been quite good. And for the last couple of weeks, every morning on my way out to work, I’ve paused to pick one tomato and eat it. Fresh off the vine! Aaaaaaaah!

That’s pretty awesome.

So, I’ll almost certainly be buying some tomato plants again, next year. Nothing beats that taste of a fresh, really fresh, tomato right off the plant in the morning.