We were having breakfast. It was Christmas Eve. Also, it was the day after our 53rd wedding anniversary.
I made “California omelettes”.

That’s an omelette with cheese, bacon, and avocado.

Sally remarked “fresh homegrown tomatoes at Christmas?”

It seems like another Christmas miracle. But it’s not a miracle, and yet, in a way, it is. The secret was taught to me by Sallie’s dad.

His family were truck garden farmers in the part of Virginia known for tomato production. The Hanover tomato.

The Taylor farm was at Seven Pines. His uncles ran the farm and hauled vegetables to the farmer’s market in the Shockoe Bottoms area of Richmond.

“Poppy” explained to me that at the end of the season, before the first frost, they would pull up all of the vines with their green tomatoes, and hang them upside down in the cellar, or some frost free place.

The vines would continue to produce big, red, luscious tomatoes far into the winter.

We’ve been doing this for years, and it is amazing to walk into the tractor shed, day after day and continue to harvest fresh, ripe, tomatoes!

We’ve even occasionally had tomatoes in February. And it’s just like Guy Clark says in his song,

“there’s just two things that money can’t buy, and that’s true love, and homegrown tomatoes!”