Tomato Season: My Beautiful Harvest, Despite the Blight

Here are just two of the 12 varieties of heirloom tomatoes my son, Lucas and I grew this year. This is a large platter to give some size relationship.

The globe shaped tomatoes are Giant Belgium and range from 2" to 4" in diameter. I've been growing Belgium for about 20 years... seed-saving every year. This year, I went for volume rather than size, so I didn't remove any tomato "babies" (which would allow the remaining tomatoes to grow much larger). In years when I've gone for size and left only a third of the tomato pips on the vine, Belgium produced 1-2 pound fruits.

The other tomato is a fairly new favorite of mine--Jersey Devil. I've been growing it for the last 4 years or so. It is a horn, pepper shaped tomato with a sweet flavor which can be used for both sauces and slicing. This year, they have grown up to 6" long.

I will say that this year I've had a terrible problem with blight and am considering solarizing my tomato beds to kill the fungus. I started with 3 raised beds and last year put in 3 more smaller beds, and sadly discovered the blight is in most of my beds. Rotating my crops every three years used to keep disease at bay, but I now have to try something radical. Either solarize the beds (covering with clear plastic, which heats and kills organisms) for the entire next year's growing season, or completely relocate my veggie garden to somewhere else on our property. The choices for new location is limited because we've planted many varieties of trees during our 17 years on our property, giving us both privacy and our own private arboretum. There are only three areas left with enough sun for a productive vegetable garden.

Wish me luck!

--Jerry Finzi