today was the day for the annual Ersten Tomaten Ritual: the ripest tomatoes were gently & ceremoniously picked from the stem, sniffed, then respectfully eaten and pronounced warm und lecker!

this year we have a lot more plants than previous years, because we grew them from seed & didn’t expect every single seed to germinate – but they did! we gave away quite a few, but still have 15 plants, which is really too many for our modest balcony (especially as we also have lettuce, rucola, parsley, nasturtiums, chives, lavender, rosemary, oregano, & a variety of other flowers that are frequented daily by a variety of bees). we had to let some tomato plants go rampant amongst other plants since we didn’t have enough stakes for them all, & there are a few that are not so healthy looking – but still with lots of fruit.

it’s been a wet summer in munich – actually i am coming to understand that summer, july in particular, is normally pretty wet; hot days build up to drenching thunderstorms. the micro-climate of our balcony lurches from extreme heat to rather cold & windy, which isn’t ideal for the tomatoes – they are either drowning or wilting. but we have a LOT of small fruit on the plants, & if the current hot sunny days hold up a bit longer, it should all ripen.