{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.
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
[email protected]
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.