I didn’t eat raw tomatoes until I was an adult. In my late thirties, I would occasionally eat a bruschetta but not very often. Then I got an allotment.

In my first year, I grew some gifted cherry plants and a couple of roma tomato plants.

And I ate my first raw tomato, a cherry tomato because cherry tomatoes are gateway tomatoes.

Over the last four years my tomato eating has evolved to homegrown only. I eat tomatoes I grow or that I know are grown at home. I eat cherry tomatoes but I really like big tomatoes, it was the black russian, gifted to me by my allotment neighbour that did it.

Most years I grow at least 30 plants, this year it’s 33, we grow a bed of cherry tomatoes and two beds of beefsteak/paste tomatoes. This year for cherry we are growing red pear and yellow delight, and for the others, a couple of amish paste and orange banana and cuore di bue and marmande.

My favourite part of the year is late August/September when I get to eat my favourite dinner of homemade bread and mayonnaise with my homegrown tomatoes.

I didn’t last year but sometimes I even get to preserve them.

I’m hoping to do that later on this year but at the moment I’m watching people in hotter climates or with greenhouses, eat their first tomatoes and I’m over a month away from eating any of mine! Which comprehensively sucks.

Yesterday, Ma and I went to West Ealing to buy tomato feed and walked through the farmers market and the Isle of Wight tomato people were there.

Reader, we spent a stupid amount of money for the best tomatoes, I’ve eaten that I didn’t grow myself. There is a picture below but please bear in mind we’d eaten about half of them by that point.

It’s Monday as I write this, all of the tomatoes have been eaten and I’m seriously considering ordering more and/or working out how many I could reasonably get away with buying next week.

They are not cheap but they are so good….