Brandywine

My first tomato not only of the year, but ever! This is the first time I've tried growing a fruit or vegetable since moving out of my parents house. I had a few bumps along the way, but she turned out okay.

We moved to California in March and as soon as we found our house I absolutely knew I had to try growing something on the back patio. On a trip to one of the local farmer's markets I found some great heirloom tomato starts. I picked up a Brandywine, a Pineapple, and a Black Krim. I was really hoping for a Green Zebra but they weren't ready yet. I carted them home, elated with my purchases. I bought great big terra cotta pots to put them in and some organic fertilizer to keep them happy and thought all was well and good.

Then I started hearing all the naysayers. Where we live on the California coast it's very foggy. Almost as foggy as San Francisco. (Nowhere is THAT foggy.) Everyone I talked to kept telling me that stuff just doesn't grow here, and especially not tomatoes. I persevered, thinking that they were all just Negative Nancy's.

My girls grew a lot over the months. Then I got hit by blight. The scourge of every tomato grower. Blight is a fungus that can completely annihilate your entire crop. It's bullshit is what it is. Husband nagged me into treating it with Copper Soap, although I was very reluctant to put anything on my plants I wouldn't be willing to eat myself. It helped a bit, but the plants required drastic trimming, especially the Brandywine.



They began to bear fruit a month or so ago and the Brandywine had the first ripe one. I was waiting to use it in a caprese salad, but when I checked on them today I saw it was splitting. Boo. I picked it and chopped off all the bad parts. I really ended up having to massacre the thing, it was pretty depressing. But, thankfully it was big enough to leave us several nice chunks for trying.

She might not have been that pretty, but she sure was tasty.