The 100 Dollar Tomato

When we were breaking ground for the garden, a family friend jokingly suggested that our yield may not keep up with our start-up cost and that we'd be enjoying the "100 dollar tomato" come summer. We still might be over what we would have paid at the farmer's market in terms of cost-per-unit, but I think we've had a pretty good result for our first season. Here's the peak of our haul, with about a quarter to a half of the red stupice tomatoes unaccounted for because they were already cooked.

If anything, we've learned the lesson of planting too many cherry varieties, because of their culinary limitations. I'm tempted to go all roma varietals next time around for pure sauce potential. Like these guys -- the only canned tomatoes I buy (unless I'm making chili.)

We have five plants producing the tomatoes seen above. The lesson here really is, if you can figure out the space for one or two plants that are your absolute favorite varieties, it's worth it. In an urban setting, be choosy about what you plant, rely on farmers' markets for the spectrum of tomato choices, and be confident you'll have more than enough of your personal bread-and-butter variety to last a few months. Even if they catch the death fungus.