The Last Tomato

Last evening I ate the last tomato. Not the last one in the universe like you might have at the Milliways restaurant, but the last one from our backyard crop last year.

Back in mid-October on the eve of the plant-killing frost, I picked every tomato to let them ripen on the workbench in my home office. The progress is documented in the photos below. All but the last one were red, ripe, and eaten by early December. But then there was still one small green hard stubborn one. I would have tossed it but, since there was no downside, I kept it; and now a full three months after it was picked, it was in a salad. It was not the most tasty tomato ever, but it was still better than anything that can be found in the grocery store at this time of year.