Colorful Tomatoes

When asked about the color of tomatoes most people will think of red. Or yellow, you may say. Exactly! That's the kind of tomatoes I eat most of the time, and that's why when I saw green tomatoes in a local farmer's market I didn't even bother to check it out.

Well, I had a tomato lesson in Liz's tomato garden yesterday, and that enriched my understanding of tomatoes. Two things I learned for growing tomatoes:

1) The good news is tomatoes love a lot of sunlight so you can definitely grow them here in Texas. The bad news is they, as many other veges in your garden, also need you to devote time taking care of them - watering, fertilizing, pest control, and so on. So, no, no, it's not something I can do for sure.

2) For those of you who are bothered so much by birds and racoons eating your tomatoes, here is a trick I learned from Liz's husband Dave. He painted Christmas ornamental balls, big and small, in red and hung them on the tomato cages. Birds and racoons then stopped pecking and eating real tomatoes. Apparently, those ornamental balls became their new targets. (Honestly speaking, they do look like perfectly grown ripe tomatoes.)

Different kinds of tomatoes I learned and tried:

• Green Zebra - the one with dark green and yellow stripes (oh, yeah. it's a ripe tomato. The color just won't turn red.)
• Earl of Edgecombe - a kind of yellow tomato
• Black Krim - the tomato skin is kinda dark
• Lollipop - a kind of really tiny yellow tomato
• and some other tomatoes...

So, what did they taste like? While I was describing all kinds of tomatoes Alex asked me this question. Huh....They were all full of flavors. Really fresh, juicy, and tasty. That's the only answer I could give.

Wanna have tomatoes for your dinner now? You can buy them from wholefood or central market, and you may find them from your local farmer's market.