Sun Gold

While the rest of the tomato plants dissolve into blackened mush and mildew, Sun Gold soldiers on, still ripening its shiny little sweet/tart orbs. It clamored over the rest of the tomatoes, flung itself into the sunflowers and eensie weensie spidered up the water spout.

It was a beautiful summer for humans but a bad bad summer for tomatoes, and right now Sun Gold is the only one out of 6-8 varieties that will be invited back next year. "Ultra Super Extra Early?" Here that means last week of October. The word "Oregon" is included in the variety name? Best we can do . . . they don't breed a "Washington Spring." Buy plants from Territorial Seeds? Yeah yeah, they're the Big Dog in the Pacific Northwest, but that was just me being lazy. Next year I will start my own and use row covers. And sadly give up my love for the rowdy and extravagently foliaged but refuse-to-ripen indeterminates and go for the more plebian determinates.