Marglobe

Unbelievable, that our tomato harvest starts at the end of September and early October.

Freakish chilly weather in May halted tomato plant development, then a tragically hot week cooked most of the tender unripe fruit on the stems. My primary producers, Better Girl and Shady Lady, went into shock and produced little to nothing this summer.

However, I did have a seedling or two sprout from some old Marglobe seeds. That would be the tomato on the left, keeping company with a Roma on the right.

Marglobe -- it's a name from my distant past, when I might have been four or five years old, and Mom was just starting her greenhouse business. I remember her talking about starting Big Boy tomatoes instead of Marglobes, even though most people in the neighborhood preferred the Marglobes. She ever after only grew Big Boy tomatoes, or Burpee varieties with the "Big Boy taste."

But knowing my mother's penchant for being contrary to what everyone else in the world considered the norm, I wondered about the choice. Did she really find Big Boy tomatoes to be superior to Marglobes, or did she veer from Marglobes just to be following her own solitary journey? I bought a packet of Marglobe seed and this year had a couple of late seedlings survive ... and finally produce a ripe fruit this week.

With great ceremony, I tasted the first vine-ripened Marglobe.

The skin was tender, the flesh delicate, the flavor ... very delicate. As in ... am I eating a tomato at all?

Just to reassure myself that I wasn't imagining things, I had a wild tomato, fresh off the volunteer vines, small thing that it was. The flavor about blasted me off the porch.

Mom was right.