Last of the Summer...Tomatoes

Hmm
Not much sewing going on here -- have to talk about the rest of my life instead.

I planted tomatoes this year

More to give Mitchell a taste of where food comes from, than as a serious gardening exercise.
I planted 4 different varieties, three heirloom ones, (including the black ones in the picture) and one modern heavy cropping one. Needless to say, we got most tomatoes from the modern version.

Mitchell loved them!

After an early experience, where he pulled off the first 20 green tomatoes and laid them out in a row for me to admire, I quickly bought some netting to keep him (and the birds) at a distance.
I had endless conversations with him, where we talked about waiting for the tomatoes to turn red & that green ones didn't taste good. [We'd had the same conversation about the strawberries, but to no effect]

Finally, we had our first red tomatoes! Great excitement!

Watched intently, I carefully reached behind the netting and picked the first tomato for Mitchell to eat.

As the season continued, Mitchell worked out how to get through the netting, and happily gobbled up uncounted numbers of red ripe tomatoes (and took bites out of a few green ones).
I took a bowl out in the evenings, to pick some of the crop for our dinner. And Mitchell quickly decided his job was to put the tomatoes in the bowl after I'd picked them.
Soon, he'd come and say "Matos" "Bowl" as he wanted me to come and pick with him.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a final glorious harvest of the last of the tomatoes & then Mitchell watched as I made tomato pasta sauce with them.

So, now we have jars of lovely sauce, eaten with everything from pizza to meatballs, as a reminder of our tomato summer.

What to grow next?