After rain. Comes more rain – that is how I have experienced summer so far this year. Sure, there have been a few days or hours of sun in between the persistent showers, but the last month has really given us a lot of precipitation. And nature has loved it – the grass is growing visibly day by day, the weeds covering the roadside are slowly but surely starting to cover the road, and our vegetable garden is absolutely overflowing with green pumpkin plants, red tomatoes and yellow goya flowers. My wife’s mother has really made a sumptuous vegetable garden in a corner of our little piece of land.
This year, especially the tomatoes have been thriving. Cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes – although my mother-in-law has made her best effort to support the plants with sticks and rope, the sheer weight of the tomatos has challenged us to eat lots and lots of tomatoes every day just to avoid the plants snapping and the tomatoes falling to the ground. And what a pleasant challenge it has been – we have had so many delicious tomato dishes to enjoy, tomato pasta, tomato soup, tomato salad, red fried tomatoes, green fried tomatoes, boiled tomatoes – maybe tonight I will try my hand on stuffed tomatoes.
My wife and I love tomatoes and this summer has done nothing but increase our appreciation of this red fruit and all of its varieties, but my happiest takeaway has been that our son has finally started to see that tomatoes is actually not that bad after all. From still having been reluctant to eat anything red just a few months ago to actually asking for a tomato – that is one happy step towards a more balanced diet.