Just when I was starting to think about shutting down the vegetable garden and clearing out some of the raised beds that are clearly not going to give me more produce this year, I find this big beauty waiting for me.

Yes, there are some raised beds that are “done” and I’ll start clearing those out next week, but the tomato plants are still giving me some nice tomatoes.

Pause for a side note:

Okay, the next part of this blog may convince you that I am clearly over the edge with gardening, and maybe there was truth in this blog entry about rituals of the first tomato. I assure you, in that posting, I really was just making fun of myself and other gardeners and the fuss we sometimes make when we harvest the first real tomato out of the garden each year, as though we’ve never seen a tomato before. I don’t really do all that stuff… it’s a made up story… I repeat, a MADE UP STORY.

Continue discussion about my big tomato:

I will confess that with this big tomato, which I feel like I have waited all summer for, I did measure the circumference around the biggest part. Any guess? How about 16 inches? Yep, 16 inches around. According to the Guinness World Records, the smallest waist on a living adult is 15 inches. My tomato is bigger than this woman’s waist!

I also weighed my tomato. I don’t have any kitchen scales, so I tried to weigh it on my electronic bathroom scales and it didn’t register. So I did the only logical thing. I weighed myself. Then weighed myself holding the tomato. Any guesses on the weight. NO, not my weight, the weight of the tomato! How about a least a pound? Yep, I weighed a pound heavier holding the tomato.

The variety… Super Beefsteak, of course. How else would you get such a fine, big slicing tomato?

And what shall I do with this tomato? Make the perfect Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato sandwich. Okay it won’t be perfect, I’ll have to make some modifications to reduce the fat… turkey bacon, low-fat mayo. Plus I don’t bake so I’ll have store bought bread, and I don’t have any fresh lettuce from the garden, so I’ll have to use store bought lettuce. But the tomato slice, THAT will be Perfect.