So far my Growing Inspiration posts have been about flowers. Of course I love flowers. I love growing them and painting them. I love cutting them for the house and watching the butterflies and bees and hummingbirds visit them in the garden.

But one of my very favorite things about the garden is eating from it. It’s something I really miss during the winter months. And my favorite thing to eat from the garden?

Yes, you guessed it. Tomatoes.

Nothing tastes like a garden tomato.

And where I live I can only eat them for a couple months each year. It makes them extra special.

I love growing unusual and heirloom varieties. There are so many colors and shapes.

This year I grew a dark purple variety called Indigo Rose. It’s beautifully purple and the plant stayed a lot healthier than my other varieties. As it ripens the purple dulls a bit and the green turns to red. Inside it’s all red. Tasty, too.

It’s the unusual colors that call to me.

Every year I end up painting a few tomatoes. They’ve shown up in my pattern designs, too.

Sometimes alone and sometimes with other garden joy.

My very first tea towel calendar (now revised with 2020 dates) has tomatoes in the design.

Tomatoes aren’t always the easiest plants to grow. They need a lot of sun. They can get unruly. Where I live they almost always come down with blight.

But even with the disappointments, I don’t think I’ll ever grow a garden without tomatoes.

What about you? Do you grow tomatoes? Do you have a favorite variety? Or maybe there’s another veggie that’s a must-have in your garden?