Tomato season!

Date: 27 September 2011 18:18:39

Both of my Grandpas were tomato growers and Guernsey has always had a history of growing these fruits and many were family run businesses. I don't especially remember my maternal grandpa growing tomatoes, other than those he had at home, but I certainly remember my paternal Grandpa's greenhouses. Grandpa had a huge glasshouse filled with tomato vines and then smell was just heavenly. Several of my childhood memories are in this glasshouse. Either running up and down the concrete path down the middle of the greenhouse, or pulling my cousins on the trailer they used to shift boxes. The most vivid memory however is not necessarily related to what I saw, but what I smelt. We were allowed to pick off the small over-ripe tomatoes that had ripened too early and therefore could not be sold. The smell of the tomato vines when you reached under the lush leaves to pick the shiny red fruit is deeply embedded in my memory. I still sniff tomatoes in supermarkets, they have to smell right before I buy them. I have just been in the garden picking the tomatoes off my Dad's plants as they are on holiday. His vines are strong and laden with fruit, even though it is quite late in the season. The smell instantly transported me back to the heat and smell of the glasshouses. It truly is the smell of my childhood. Delicious!