{Giveaway is Closed}
Growing up, tomatoes have been a HUGE part of my family’s life every single summer for as long as I’ve been around. We were spoiled with home grown tomatoes all my life. I’m so happy that my hubby enjoys growing fruits and veggies too and he has made a huge effort to grow tomatoes for us for the last 3 years or so. It’s a learning process and he hopes to get even better at it.
With this new book that I was given for review, How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes, I do believe he will get even better at this tomato-growing game.
For more information on the book, check out the website, where you can also purchase your own copy of the book.
Written by Annette Welsford and Lucia Grimmer, two tomato growing enthusiasts from Brisbane, Australia, you will find so much great information for growing your own.
The book evolved one hot summer afternoon over a glass or two of wine accompanied by a selection of delicious tomato based savories, after their friends often lamented that searching the internet provided masses of tomato hits, but the information provided was either too technical or too general.
Thus, this book was born from 2 experts in the field.
It’s a soft cover book, chock full of great information for the home gardener. Everything you need to grow some beautiful, luscious fruit of your own:
- Tomato Varieties
- Site Preparation
- Cultivation
- Watering your Plants
- Nutrition
- Pests and Diseases
- Picking & Storage
- Collecting Seed
- Growing Organically
- Hydroponics
- Greenhouses
All of that and more! If you’re a tomato lover and home gardener, I think you’ll really enjoy having this book as a reference on your shelves. My hubby was really excited to see this come in and I know he’ll be scouring the pages for better tips on how to grow our tomatoes to the fullest next year.
(My dad is a wonderful gardener and these Romas are straight from his garden).
We brought home a huge amount of those Roma tomatoes from my parents’ place in the mountains and I had to do something with them, so I made a huge batch of salsa. We have been using these Concord Food packets, which you can get at most grocery stores in the produce section and they’re a really easy way to get salsa in a hurry, if you don’t feel like chopping everything to go in here. This packet is added to tomatoes and onions and has a really good flavor (not getting paid for this, but wanted to share). 
I made a HUGE bowl of salsa and we’ve been eating on it for a week. I used my blender to chop up all those Romas. I didn’t even peel them for the salsa.
I used the other half of the tomatoes for tomato basil soup. I quickly got the skins off by putting them in boiling water for just a couple of minutes. I learned that trick from my mom. The skins will slip right off. 
It was really delish! Just finished up the last of it.
If you’d like to win a copy of the book ($29.95 value), just leave a comment and tell me if you love tomatoes as much as I do! There is also a bonus CD included with the book which is a Varieties database.
Do you have a favorite variety that you love to grow? I’d love to hear that too.
You can also purchase the book here.
That’s it! I’ll draw a winner on Monday evening.
- Rhoda
What great timing for this giveaway!! The hubby and I just planted some Fantastic tomato plants last weekend. We could really use this book! Thanks so much for the giveaway. Love your blog.
This book sounds terrific. I’m a relatively new veggie gardener (2nd year) and I can use all the tips I can get! Thanks for the awesome giveaway.
There’s nothing like a fresh tomato still warm from the sun!
Sue
Rhoda, My husband and I would love to have a copy of this book . Our vines for big tomatoes did not do too good this year. But the cherry tomatoes are giving us an abundance. We enjoy having them for salads and other dishes. You have given me so many decorating ideas. Always a treat to visit the blog. Thanks!
We LOVE tomatoes at our house, but haven’t grown them in years (since we moved from a house that already had a garden when we moved in). Maybe this book would be the kick in the pants we need to get started again.
I too grew up on tomatoes. Coming from a family of 6 siblings our summers were full of tomato sandwiches. Yummmm!! This past spring my sister sent me some of her Brandywine tomato seeds that she had received from a gentleman in her church. He had received them from his daughter who had purchased some at Jefferson’s Monticello house. These seeds were 2 years old but I have been enjoying the best tomatoes I have ever eaten. There are many Brandywine heirloom varieties but these are the pink variety…very meaty, flavorful, not acidic and soooo delicious. They are not always perfect in contour but this is one of the characteristics of an heirloom tomato. If you can’t find the seeds locally they may be purchased online at heirloomseeds.com or monticellocatalog.org. Everyday now I wait for my next Brandywine to ripen so I may devour it in a sandwich. Also, I am saving some of the seeds from my tomatoes this year to plant next year. Just wanted to make more people aware of this delicious brand of tomato that has not been tweaked for beauty and perfection for the consumer but is a great tomato to be planted in your garden.
Oh I would love this for my FIL!!!!! He has the best garden and would LOVE this!
My kids and I went to our local farmers market every week last month and bought the best tasting tomatoes I have ever had. It was a huge feeling of withdrawal when we went one week to gets some more and they were not selling them any more. I have decided next summer to try my own garden. This sounds like a great book to get me started with awesome tomatoes.
Freshly grown tomatoes are always so good! Wonderful giveaway!
Rhoda!..I have a new Giveaway on my site also!
Karena
Art by Karena
Rhoda, This is such a timely word! My husband and I have decided to grow our own tomatoes next summer. He has a friend with a large vegetable garden in South Georgia that has kept us stocked all summer. Nothing like a tomato sandwich on a hot summer day!!
Wow, thanks for hosting this Rhoda! My husband and I just started our first garden this year. We planted the better boy variety of tomatoes-and they taste great, but look a little weird-this book will definitely help! We are having so much fun though!
I would love to win this book! We grow tomatoes every summer and we normally grow Better Boys. They are wonderful for making a tomato sandwich!
Is there anything better than a tomato sandwich? Thanks for the chance.
Susie
I love fresh tomatoes. I would like to know how to grow them!
thanks for the giveaway- this was my first year to garden and have enjoyed cherokee purple tomatoes and better boys more so than any other we planted . plan to expand next season to include more veggie varieties. book sounds like it is very informative.
What a wonderful give away! Even if I don’t win this book I’m interested in buying it. We grow tomatoes in our garden every year and can them too. This year they are so slow to produce. Favorites: Honestly I don’t have a favorite, but last year I did can some yellow tomatoes (not sure of the actual name) and they were so good and so pretty in those jars.
Rhoda, we try growing tomatoes every year. Unfortunately, we haven’t found the secret to having lots of tomatoes. It’s a good thing that I have a friend who gives me tomatoes from her abundant crop!
What a perfect book give-away for the summer! I would love this book. Every year I say I am going to plant tomatoes , and then I never do. I am sure this book would give me the confidence to do that. Thanks, Rhoda!
I love tomatoes. Love them in salads, sandwiches, on bruschetta especially. I go to lowes and pick the best looking plants so I don’t really have a favorite brand. It’s not a brand but I love cherry tomatoes, I love to pop them in my mouth from the vine!!!
My hubs loves to garden! We usually plant 14-18 tomato plants just in case a few don’t make it to harvest! Well, this year, we had too much rain and I don’t think we will get more than 3-4 out of the whole garden!! My hubs is just sick and can’t figure out why it went so wrong….soil? too much rain?? not enough heat at the proper time?? anyway this book will help him solve the tomato dilema! thanks for a great blog!
I must love tomatoes; when I think about my meals of the last week (as far back as I could recall) tomatoes figured somehow in every one but breakfast! Thanks for the opportunity to win!
There is nothing better than heading to the garden with your pepper shaker and sitting down under a shade tree near the tomatoes with a lap full of your pickins. You sit there and savor the ripeness and the beautiful deep red color, knowing that eventually when you bite in you will taste the nectar of the God’s! Then you decide to bite and hope that you mostly have meat and not just juices. Then you sprinkle a bit of pepper and take another bite. When you have had your fill, you pick a basket load and take it in the house for your tomato sandwiches later that day. I love summer because of the tomatoes. We grow heirloom varieties and while you eat them you realize that these have been cherished fruit for generations. I can never get enough tomatoes in the summer and love to can and dry them for enjoyment in the winter months. Ummm, Ummm good!
Summer just isn’t summer without home grown tomatoes! We love them! I grew some heirlooms from seed last year. They were very nice. My regular favs are Celebrity and Better Boys. Lot’s of German Johnsons in the Farmer’s Market around here.
Great giveaway! Thanks for the chance.
My DH LOVES tomatoes. When they’re ready, he’ll eat BLTs every night. Learning to grow them in the Alabama clay was a challenge after Iowa black soil, but he does pretty well.
Home grown tomatoes are the best! I hope I win the book.
We bought a house too late in the year to start our garden, but we can’t wait to do one this year! This book would be great to kick start it. Thanks for the chance to win!
We love fresh garden grown tomatoes. We tried a new kind this year: Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes, and so far they’re a hit!
I grew up loving tomatoes. I would just pick my tomato, grab a salt shaker and eat away. Messy for a child, but oh, so good!
We love tomatoes but don’t have much luck growing them!
Love your blog!!
I remember picking tomatoes from our garden so my mom could make us tomato sandwiches for lunch. My entire family still shares tomatoes with each other even though everyone grows their own! I’ve never tried to make salsa. It looks yummy!
There is nothing better than a fresh home grown tomato! My dad always grew them when I was a child but I didn’t like them. He couldn’t understand why I loved ketchup but not a tomato. My honey and I grow them in our back yard and this summer had an excellent, tasty crop. We are now waiting on our “fall” crop to produce. We have had a lot of luck with Big Boy tomatoes.
This book sounds fantastic. I actually picked some grape tomatoes from the garden this morning. They are beautiful and delicious! I wish I could say the same thing about the large tomatoes. For some reason they have cracks in them. Very frustrating!
cmflan122@gmail.com
My parents always used to grow Beefsteak and Big Boy tomatoes. I’ve been interested in trying some of the heirlooms. My favorite way to eat tomatoes is sliced on a sandwich with mayonnaise and bacon or on a plate with cottage cheese. Always a great summertime treat!
If I had to choose just one thing to eat for the rest of my life I think it would be tomatoes!!! My husband doesn’t like them & I say that there is just something fundamentally WRONG with a person who doesn’t like tomatoes, however I finally got him to eat salsa, which he doesn’t consider to be tomatoes. Whatever! More for me!Love your website BTW!
I love tomatoes! I like em in salad green salads, pasta salads, with red onions and vinagrette, bruchetta, hot in sauces, grilled, sundried, and fresh picked from the vine. Nothin beats it!
My husband and I love to garden, and we really love tomatoes!!
My husband and I started our first garden this year. My tomatoes did not turn out well…..so I would love some pointers. I LOVE tomatoes simmered in olive oil and garlic and tossed with fresh basil (our basil did great) and pasta….delish….even better if were made from my own tomatoes!
I LLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEE tomatoes! Home grown, sliced with salt and pepper.
I need some help in growing tomatoes. My Romas are very small, even though I have fertilized them. So, this book would give me some great tips, I am sure. I do love homegrown tomatoes!!!!
I adore tomatoes! I do think they are one of my favorite veggies…I know, they are called a fruit, but let’s call them veggies for now.
In the summer, there is nothing better than making a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with oregano, salt and pepper and a touch of olive oil over the tomatoes. My nuni from Sicily made all of her grandchildren her version of grilled cheese and I could (and have) eaten one of these every day in the summer when the tomatoes are ripe. Try it girls, you will like it, it is like eating pizza. Yum! You can get fancy with the cheese but you must sprinkle oregano and fresh pepper for the flavor.
I’ve been wanting to grow tomatoes and jalapenos to make salsa. This would be a great book because I need help! I can’t keep mine growing and alive. LOL. 🙂
Please count me in: I love fresh tomatoes….no other flavor like it in the WORLD!!!!
My favorite variety to grow is Roma. I like to eat Cherry though. Wish I had some to add to my tacos tonight!
Becca
homeiswheremystorybegins@gmail.com
Oh, how I’d love that book! I love adding new varieties of tomatoes to my garden annually and a CD database would be such a plus! Thank you! By the way, your salsa looks scrumptious!
I llooove tomatoes. Especially salsa! That book would be so helpful for our garden.
I love home grown tomatoes! Didn’t have much luck with our tomatoes this summer, so I hope I win the book to help me figure out why. Thanks for the opportunity!
Tomatoes!! Growing up I wouldn’t touch a tomato! My mom and sister would eat them straight out of the garden…but not me!! As a grown up it is a completely different story. I love them! I have the best luck growing grape or cherry. I could definitely learn a thing or two from this fabulous book! Keeping my fingers crossed!!
I just got married in may. My Hubby and I are going to grow tomatoes next summer. I love tomatoes I can eat them like apples in the summer. They are my favorite!!! Thanks for your blog. It’s great.
This would come in handy. I love love love tomatoes and have been growing them on and off over the years with a big “on” for the last 3 years. Would love some tips!
In keeping with the theme…I wonder if you have read Mary Kay’s book Itty Bitty Lies? It’s a good one too!
I just wanted to let you know that I ordered some Dischangers after you did a post last month about hanging some yard sale plates with them. I just posted about them and the project I used them in, I put a link back to you and to the company – thank you so much for recommending them!
http://thelittlebrownhouse.us/2010/08/07/hanging-plate-wall-art/
I’d love to win this book. We are amateurs – we’ve got tomato plants in the ground, but any success we’re having is purely dumb luck.
tomatoes are my favorite veggie–well, fruit, I mean!
Rhoda –
My dad & I have been in competition to see who could grow the better tomato for a couple of years now. The last two years, dad has had trouble with his plants. Last year the deer ate all of his plants and this year, he hasn’t had one single tomato. Of course we tease each other terribly, but that is the fun we have in our competitions. I would love to win this book to send to my dad. Please enter me.
Thanks,
Toni
Love tomatoes; all kinds. Can’t grow tomatoes; any kind. What finally overcomes the clay soil, gets established and begins to take off gets munched back down by the deer. In the last three years, I’ve planted at least 15 plants in the ground and even tried a big patio pot and have harvested a total of three tomatoes- -including my big haul of two so far this year. Each year I think I’ve got it figured out and nature mutates. Thank goodness for the Farmers Market and generous neighbors. I just keep the seed companies in business.
To say we LOVE tomatoes would be an understatement! This is our 2nd year to start about 200 plants from seed in our sunroom. We sell all but 50-60 plants. We plant those in our big raised bed gardens and make lots of salsa and tomato sauce with the rest to freeze or can. We love Opalkas for sauce and the Roma’s for salsa. We also do some slicers and little ones just to have something yummy to eat. We could use any help we can get to grow these successfully each year. Our growing season can be tricky with cool nights and sometimes early freezes. We would love to win this book! THanks for the great giveaway. I love your blog!
All my g-parents grow is mealy pearsand my parents can’t keep a cactus alive. Also you can’t eat the orchids I grow so no salsa for me 🙁
We love tomatoes. Since we use a lot of them to make tomato sauce, I prefer to grow Romas for this purpose.
rsgrandinetti@yahoo(DOT)com
Nobody loves tomatoes like I do. I want them warm or room temperature and the best thing ever is a tomato sandwich with white bread and mayo. I am grateful for friends who share their abundant crop with us each year. Thanks for offering the book.
Oh, tomatos, don’t they just scream summer? A dinner with fresh corn, sliced tomatos and something on the grill is our favorite. I have never tackled growing any. Just did an herb garden this year,and its doing so well…maybe with this book I could graduate to tomatos! thanks for the great give-a-way!
I could just pick one of those beautiful tomatoes right off the vine and bite into it!!! Fresh tomatoes from the garden have always been my fav. (Especially those picked from my grandmothers garden in south GA.) !!! Yummy, Terri
Wow, do I need this! I should show you a picture of my tomatoes…they are half dead looking. They started out so well and tons of fruit on them. Then the tomatoes started looking weird shaped with ugly spots. I got very few tomatoes to use. I sure could use the help!
I LOVE tomatoe sandwhiches. I tried to grow tomatoes this year in flower pots and I put too many plants in one pot. Wasn’t a good idea.
I love all things tomatoes, including growing them!! Me thinks I’ll have to BUY this book if I don’t win, so here’s hopeing……
Oh, how I need that book. I really, really need that book. One thing’s for sure– if I don’t win it, I’m definitely going to buy it!
My favorite tomato variety? I’ve got a new one this year– Purple Russian. I was only able to harvest a couple before the plant went sad. I couldn’t believe how yummy they were!
Hugs,
Jill
I love tomatoes and grow my own. Beefstake is my favorite I like a large tomato for slicing for sandwiches.
Yes, I love tomatoes as much as you!! I put them into everything…especially when I grow them fresh. Bruschetta is made every night and added to breakfast, lunch and dinner around here!
🙂
🙂 Love tomatoes! Would love to read the two experts tips and information. Sweet 100’s are my current favorite.
I would LOVE to win a copy of this for my husband. We’re not quite sure what happened but our tomatoes made a terribly poor showing this year. We need all the help we can get to avoid disaster next year as well.
One of the things I love about summer is tomatoes! Would love the win this book!
My family loves any and all tomatoes. My son eats them like apples and I would love to win a book like yours. Looks delightful and delicious!
I LOVE this time of the year when tomatoes are growing wild. Mine are great this season and I’m always looking for new ideas and tricks. What a great book.
Here’s a peak at my maters:
http://sabbyinsuburbia.blogspot.com/2010/08/you-capture-summer.html
Huge tomato fan! Always have, I used to eat bites off of them on my family’s garden, when I was a child. Not growing any this year as our porch is covered and we dont have a yard. But we will have one going next year for sure! A few years ago I grew yellow grape tomato’s which were stellar because you rarely find them in a store. Loved it!
My tomatoes didnt turn out very good this year- this will help me grow them next year for sure!!
I love tomatoes! It’s not summer eating without them!
We love tomatoes! BLT’s with fresh tomatoes are one of our favorite meals. Thanks
This si a terrific post! What ‘s not to love about tomatoes??? I’d love to have the book. I’d also love to repost this on my blog – with credit to you of course! Would that be possible?
I LOVE tomatoes! And even though I don’t like foods, I love salsa made with the milder chilies. Maybe this book would help me have a bigger harvest.
I absolutely love tomatoes. And, you don’t even know how bad I need this book. We planted tomatoes this year, and I have not had one single red tomato. Can you imagine my frustration!