1st Tomato on June 7th

There are a lot of interesting shapes coming out of this tomato patch. Like this triple.

1st Tomato on June 25th

By the second week in August there were so many that I had to find a solution.

June 25th - all of a sudden there are tomatoes everywhere and that 1st one has lots of company!

I knew I needed help, so who else would I call but my mom.

It's still the 1st tomato, now on July 3rd.

I built a drying rack out of recycled wood and some bird netting. Put it in the old vegetable cart and covered it with more bird netting.

Gone for the weekend and everything changes. This gnarly Mexican beauty is almost ripe on July 10th.

This is a little less than a bushel I picked on August 11th.

Almost waited too long to pick this 1st one. They are ripe when there's still some green left - July 12th

We'll be enjoying (or getting sick of) these tasty things for months to come.

A view from the bottom.

I took it to the office to show off, slice, and share around the building on the 13th. Also ran it by a couple of restaurants and a caterer. The flavor and look got rave reviews. The most common question was: "What is it?" Some didn't seem to believe it was a tomato. Others wanted to know what I did to make it look so weird. I told them all that Columbus asked the same question when he first saw one in Venezuela 500 years ago. Is it an heirloom? If that's what popular culture wants to call a real tomato, I guess so. I think I'll call it the Antecolon Illegal Immigrant de Oaxaca (Aiido).