274 - My new obsession

Well... maybe not new...

Saw the most gorgeous thing the other day. Nope, not the butterfly.

Hello gorgeous.

Ignore that it looks like that beautiful tomato threw up all over the place. Focus, if you will, on the wonderful chocolatey looking tomato (hey Robyn - a chocolatey tomato!). Admire the bold, rich color. The shiny, tempting flesh. The swollen, juicy... damn, I getting turned on.

But that's not enough for me. I want more. I'm an ever-so-greedy tomato consumer. And now that I know tomatoes come in all sorts of colors and flavors... I hunted down The Black Krim. Even the name is cool, yes? It's Russian. Hello comrade.

Is it pretty? Da. It is pretty. Look at that dark, rich, lycopene filled goodness. And they say it provides its own salty flavor. Mmmmm... bring it.

If that weren't enough, it just kept getting deeper and darker. Allow me to introduce you to the Chocolate-Cherry tomato.

Holy. Cow. I want it.

So thanks to The Reliant Self (see sidebar), I found some great heirloom seed sellers on eBay. And you know what? I had a $25 gift certificate. I got tons of seeds for $1.79. That was the total cost of shipping, for around 2,000 seeds. No matter how many seeds you buy they only charge $1.79 shipping. A zillion seeds? $1.79. Not bad. And they're heirloom seeds that haven't been genetically modified (non-GMO), so I can harvest my own seeds and continue to plant year after year after year... I got purple carrots, white radishes, green clovers and yellow moons (just checking to see if you're paying attention... but up until the green clover part, I was serious). Hell, I went ape shit and bought a little bit of everything.

My tomatoes are prolific this year. I ate my first tomato on Sunday. A small teardrop shaped yellow heirloom variety. And I have a whole cluster that is just about ready to ripen. My orangey-striped tomatoes have also started to show some color. All in all, I estimate that I have about... oh... 40-60 little tomatoes out there. And tons of blooms. They say tomatoes grow a tad better when you talk to them, so I've been stroking their egos... 'you're so pretty'... 'look at how many blooms you have'... 'my, how tall you've gotten!' It seems to be working. I also have two jalapeno blooms and one almost-ripe strawberry. I should probably pick it now before THE THING gets to it. It killed my turnip. Peas are going nowhere fast. Herbs are great. Lettuce is fine. Life is good.

So T minus two days until I leave for Florida! Launch on Friday. Busy, busy, busy... still haven't finished packing, am panicking a little... usually packed a week ahead of time... ARGH! So forgive me any typos or grammatical errors... I am speed blogging tonight. I don't know if I'll blog again until I get back. So if I don't, good afternoon, good evening and good night!