The shapes are different ! Floridity is a ‘pointy’ plum – skinny and long, and very even in shape. Rosada is more uneven, undulating even, with a cute dimpled bottom.

If I had to choose between the two, I would probably go for Floridity, but only by a Calyx whisker.

Snowberry is a medium to large sized cherry tomato. Long, thin, spidery calyx. Pale yellow skin (texture is a pleasant eating). Quite tart but juicy and nice flesh. So overall – a goody.

Santorage is a lovely shape and colour. Sort of egg/plum shaped, although more damson in size. Lovely day-glo orange skin which also infuses the flesh of the tomato (think cantaloupe melon). Sweet with a tiny tart edge; a light flavour. Not many seeds. Perhaps more of a light cooking tomato than salad. A goody for beautiful looks and bountiful harvest.

But through the gloom, the gifts keep coming, 6kg this week – and one courgette !  There maybe another on the way but then, that maybe that.  I will need to take a courgette masterclass next year if ratatouille is ever to be part of my repertoire !

There are still some ‘big’ varieties yet to ripen but this week Snowberry joined the ripe roll call.

For which look no further than Isle of Wight Oak Roasted Tomatoes. Stir some tomatoes and oil into creamy ricotta and heap on toasted sun-dried tomato bread.

Just as home-fires burning smoke, curls upwards in welcome, from atop the chimney on a drawing-in night; so this will make slipper-clad toes curl up in pleasure.

But of course I’ve also had to peek ahead to see how and when tomatoes feature.

They first appear on April 14th when they get sown (in plugs).  By May 13th, when they make their next appearance, they are in 3″ pots and ‘getting leggy and need planting out‘. Just over 2 months later, August 15th they are ripening and the slugs are munching.

And then on September 9th Monty declares, ‘ It’s the high point of the tomato harvest‘. Which I found very comforting. It means that for one of our best gardener’s, the best had – come the beginning of September – yet to come !

I think his tomatoes are all grown in greenhouses. Varieties include:

• Black Russian
• Andine Cornue
• Brandywine
• Costoluto Fiorentino
• Roma
• Shirley ( Ideal for frying)
• Black Plum
• Britain’s Breakfast
• Tigerella ( good, lots of flavour – I agree ! )
• Marmande ( disillusioned with taste)
• Burpee Delicious ( his favourite)

And their curtain call ? November 7th: ‘cleared greenhouses of tomatoes‘. A pretty, long run !

If it was back to school then that step might be made in new shoes, shined high for new beginnings. In this spirit, I decided to spruce up the tomato plants and give them all a sharp haircut.

With warmth and sun back in the same kind of abundance as is held within the stitched folds of a doubled-over, plenty of room to let-down-for-growth hem, it seemed a good time to ditch the leaf canopy and let the tomatoes ripen in full glare.

I had to wait to do this as it’s the sort of task where my ‘enough’ alarm bell never sounds. I just keep going until the word pruned is scratched and replaced by ’scalped’. So I wanted to wait until late enough in the season when defoliation or even deforestation could occur and the plants get by without.

It also meant I got shot of all the Yellow Balconi leaves that I have so taken against. And with more split stems I decided to protect the whole lot under fleece. Hopefully it will also act as disguise to prevent the return of the slimy squatters, all of whom were evicted as part of the great clear up process.

So now the only game left to play is the ripening one…… and it’s happening in full view !

I’ve a love/hate relationship with this variety. The downsides are :

•  The leaves; they’re fleshy and tend to rot especially close to the soil
•  Slugs and snails love to crawl up the pots and hide under the dense leaf canopy
• The tomatoes at the centre of the plant are difficult to get at and pick
• In trying to get to all the fruit I’ve ended up moving the stem around – and then it tends to break. Which is why a couple of the plants are now covered with fleece. I’m hoping a physical barrier will prevent infection entering the split stem.

But on the other hand:

• They don’t take up much room. They only need small containers and sit low in the pot without being given to sprawling - they produce a lot of fruit from a concentrated area.
• They don’t need staking or pinching out.
• So far from 9 plants, I’ve had nearly 6kg of tomatoes. They are givers !

And as I’ve now discovered, they make a delicious and cheery sauce. I left the seeds in and perhaps took a bit longer than the recommended 5 minutes but served with some peas, pasta and parmesan, as I twirled the yella fellas and spaghetti round my fork, all my thoughts were sunny ones.

Here it is with the shadows which are cast by the morning sun. It’s the time of year when the shadows change in character from a place of retreat, for respite from the heat to a place where chiaroscuro sharp edges hem you in dungeon like darkness.

Still given the weather they’re having to cope with and a blight watch warning text arriving on Friday, I’m just glad everything is still here in some shape and form.

And cropping has been good this week : 6.9kg of tomatoes. So some more sunshine from above and a bit of TLC from me and hopefully there will still be plenty of good tomato days to come.

Today’s dish contravened those rules. The picture may not look much, but therein lies the clue to how delicious this bake is. Drool factor was ’running’ at a level too high to allow pre-scoff photo QC.

Adapted from ‘Real Fast Vegetarian Food‘ by Ursula Ferrigno this is a downy, puffy pillow of a gratin with a red satin sheet edge, courtesy of finely chopped, fresh red chilli.

So for a 2 person gratin love-in you will need the following :

• 1 onion, half a red chilli ( remove seeds) and 1 garlic clove – all finely chopped
• 350g of fresh tomatoes ( remove seeds) – roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 fresh sage leaves – finely chopped and 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3 eggs, forked
• 25g ricotta cheese
• 75g parmesan cheese, grated
• THEN:
• Heat the oil in a pan and gently cook the onions, garlic and chilli for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 5.  Add sage, oregano, salt & pepper.
• Whilst that’s cooking, mix the ricotta and half the parmesan into the forked eggs.
• Layer the bottom of an ovenproof dish with the onion/tomato mix. Pour the eggy/cheesy mix on top of that and scatter the other half of parmesan over that.
• Bake in 180c( fan)/2ooC/ Gas Mark 6 oven for 20 minutes.

Take out of the oven, sigh and eat.

So when I saw the latest edition of his magazine Jamie had an article on new tomato recipes it was a must-have.

Wine-Gummy Tomatoes sound good (tomato halves oven-roasted for 4 hours at low temperature) and I thought maybe Orange Tomato & Horseradish Shots might cure me of my aversion to tomato juice.  That was before I saw they’re an accompaniment to a little smoked eel on toasted ciabatta. I’ve not had eel – it might be lovely. But if not – then my hope of learning to love TJ will be forever dashed by association.

But whatever I choose to make the good news is I’m growing the right tomatoes. Out of ‘Jamie’s Top Sorts’,  I’m growing 4:

Sungold, Black Cherry, Green Zebra, Brandywine, Russian Black and Ananas Noir

So I’ve ‘appliqued’ the photo of ‘Catalan Style Bread with Squashed Tomatoes’ with my own Sungold, Black Cherry and Green Zebra.