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Old July 27, 2008   #5
nctomatoman
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Hendersonville, NC zone 7
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Starting to recover a bit!!! (slept till nearly 9 AM today, which is quite unusual for me).

So, thanks so much to Jimmy and Fred for putting up with the invasion of their little slice of heaven. Thanks to Lee for putting so much energy, enthusiasm, time and planning. Thanks to my family - Sue, Sara, and Caitlin; to my friends old and new - Patrina, Jeff, and Gary (and Sara's friend Allison); to the various Tomatovillians and their families who attended (esp. those who came from afar, such as Jerry and his wonderful wife, Deb; to Greg - those pictures are amazing! - Tim and his wife, a truly supreme slicer/cutter of tomatoes!) - this event has become a bit beyond what Lee and I imagined when we started Tomatopalooza 6 years ago.

Some thoughts on the event....

It takes a bit of time to set up, but I think we got some things right on the organization part of the event (welcome table, contact sheet, renting sufficient tables, creating a Tshirt, etc). Hard to believe that with quite a few of us getting there at 9 or so, we still just about got things ready by 1 PM! And, despite the yellow jacket nest discovered in the morning, no one got stung (great action on ensuring that things were under control prior to the start!).

You can't judge the success of the event until you are about an hour into it....we were concerned we'd have few people, few tomatoes, little food - but it all worked out great in the end. By 2 PM or so the place was hopping, and the day flew by! The weather was just perfect....a great day all around (warm, but a nice breeze, and plenty of shade)

On the tomatoes....just a generally disappointing year for flavors, yields, number of varieties. We've noted for some time that this was a very odd growing season. To me, some of the best flavors came from the Dwarf table (which is great news for the project!). In previous years, we had such an overabunance of tomatoes that we gave them away by the loads after the event. No so this year - bicolors, greens and whites were significantly underrepresented. Blacks and browns as well.....well, maybe everything was a bit underrepresented!

So, for next year....do we move the date? The day (we've had some requests for Sunday, rather than Saturday)? The location certainly works perfectly of course....if Jimmy and Fred will continue to have us, of course!

We certainly missed those Tomatovillians we've had in the past who for various reasons couldn't attend.
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