Sure, I grow tomatoes. But I had a phone conversation today with a real, live Tomatoman, THE Tim Stark. He grows tomatoes for some of NYC's most prominent chefs.
He has also just finished a book about tomatoes and life and farming and stuff. It will be out in July and hopefully I'll get to take a sneaky peeky at it before I get too busy with the farm this summer. Otherwise it will be one of next winter's first reads.
So anyway, I find the guy inspiring. He grows a lot of things, but mainly has a passion for tomatoes, which I can fully identify with. His secondary passion is peppers (he calls them "chiles", I don't know enough about them to understand why), which I guess he will be sending me recommendations for varieties shortly. He estimated that he had over 19,000 (that's thousand with a T) tomato plants this past season, which due to good weather extended into November! This while mine died out in September. But he's in Southeastern PA in a zone 6, I believe.
Maybe someday I'll write a book about how I'm the Tomatoguy or the Tomatofella in my part of the world. Maybe I'll write a book about Tim Stark instead.
OK...back to the seed catalogs.
