For some arcane but natural reason known only to the God of the Harvest this year turned out to be a puzzling one for the production of tomatoes in our backyard gardens. We had planted three tomato vines; one a field-type tomato, the second to produce clusters of cherry tomatoes and the last to give us those versatile plum tomatoes. They all started out as very modest plants, the exception being the cherry tomato vine which was already sporting a few immature tomatoes along with yellow florets when we planted it, It duly and early produced a very small harvest of eh!-tasting tomatoes; the others flowered in good time but their production was sparse, and the vines just never seemed to take off.

It was not, in fact, until September before they all began to really mature, and grow sensationally, sending fingers of vines hither and yon, grasping onto a neighbouring fence, the deck stair bannisters, sending long, deep tap roots into the soil that had been fertilized amply with kitchen-waste compost and sheep manure. There was scads of rain this summer, hardly necessitating that the plants be watered much at all, and there was no lack of sun directly hitting the plant during the peak sunlight hours of every day.

But their production was minimal and what was harvested had little taste. The tomato vines that would occasionally spontaneously germinate from compost matter sprinkled over the gardens, or that would suddenly pop out from between the slats of the composter, or beside it, produced more vigorous and tastier fruit than those of the nursery-cultivated vines, we soon enough discovered. But we enjoyed planting the vines and do so every year, not so much for the produce we collect, but the thought of growing our own and the satisfaction in observing their progress during the growing season. Yet, this year there was little progress to be witnessed -- until late in the season, when the vines all became absolutely gargantuan and their yield truly impressive.

After the first week of frost the vines began to shrink back into themselves, but the produce, while still green, was impressive, and we gathered all the fruit together to take it downstairs to the furnace room in the basement, to be spread out on newspapers, to ripen. They aren't worthwhile for taste and texture, for use in salads, but they do make excellent stewed tomatoes, green-fried tomatoes, tomatoes for soup or for sauce, and that's what's been happening with them.

Yesterday, for example, dinner consisted of a fresh vegetable salad, and a hearty tomato-bean soup. The night before I had soaked a combination of lentils, pea beans, garbanzo beans, and white kidney beans overnight; while the lentils don't require pre-soaking the rest do. They formed the base of the soup. I chopped a large garlic clove and an onion, gently cooking them in olive oil, then added the tomatoes I had placed in boiling water and skinned and chopped along with a rib of celery chopped, and the beans that had been thoroughly rinsed, into a deep pot. Adding a bay leaf, several tablespoons of tomato paste and a Knorr beef-broth tablet and boiling water, it simmered for hours, casting its fragrance throughout the house, which greeted us as we arrived back home from a very cold ravine walk.