Part 1: Tomatoes in Southeast San Francisco, 2024
Last year was my first successful year growing healthy, productive tomatoes in my San Francisco garden. Late blight has taken out every other tomato crop I have tried here in San Francisco, and for a couple years after a devastating 2021 late blight attack, frustrated, I didn't grow any tomatoes. But, tomatoes rival tree fruit as a reason to grow food in your own garden. Even farmers market tomatoes don't compare to the most perfectly ripe, fragrant, heavy fruit from a summer garden. Bring it inside, the fruit still warm from the sun and arms stained green from the vines, and slurp it up with salt, like a bloody, slippery organ. Tomatoes bring out one's cannibal self. What made the difference last year was lots and lots of research, specifically focused on the most blight resistant hybrids that tasted good. I had to give up on heirloom tomatoes in my garden because of the disease pressure and my refusal to spray regularly with antifungals. So last year I grew three hybrid
