Confessions of a Tomato-Aholic

My name is Dawn and I'm a tomato-aholic (cue audience welcome). I have a list of foods that if life was limited to eating them and only them, I could be fairly happy and tomatoes are pretty high up on that list. I've really never met a tomato I didn't like and when summer comes I get well...a little tomato crazy. Tomatoes and I go way back - I inherited the tomato-gene from my father who decried that upon his retirement he would use all of his work neckties to stake his tomato plants. And he did.

We were city dwellers and had a small backyard, but there were always 12 tomato plants in his little garden plot. We scheduled family vacations around his tomato harvest - seriously. And when August rolled around and that first beefsteak tomato turned brilliant red, he would dash out and pick it at the peak of flavor and make himself a simple tomato sandwich - white bread, butter, thick slices of tomato and salt. Perfection.

In the Spring, I get glassy-eyed pouring over the seed catalogs and start to panic that I won't have enough tomatoes. This year, we planted 36 little peat pots - carefully tending to them like a delicate piece of china. When they grew too big for their little pots, we lovingly transplanted them into bigger ones - though by then we had lost half and were down to 18. When the weather warmed, out on the patio they went, where we lost most of the rest. By planting time, I was in full-on panic and dashed out to buy plants in tons of varieties. We planted 15 in the ground and another 6 in pots. 21 tomato plants and I'm still a little nervous about my yield. I have a real problem.

If you're not into the real thing, get in on the tomato fun this year by crocheting a few. I found these adorable versions in online photo forums.

Only another couple of weeks and I'll be overrun with tomatoes - start warming up the canner!