Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneAn 1884 tomato on 7 June, still flowerless — gray-green compound leaves with tiny extra leaflets squeezed in between the pairs, every rib furred with short white hairs, under flat overcast light with no shadow anywhere.Week of 6 JulyAn 1884 tomato on 7 July, the nearer fruit flattened and ribbed right round its shoulder under a star of narrow sepals while the one behind it stays round and smooth, both still wholly green in flat shadowless light.Week of 13 JulyAn 1884 tomato on 17 July, a flattened whitish-green globe whose shoulder is cut by eight or so broad shallow lobes so its outline is scalloped rather than round, the calyx bent back over it, four more sitting darker in the shade below.Week of 20 JulyAn 1884 tomato on 20 July, ribbed into shallow lobes and caged by long sepals that arch over its crown, its cream-yellow starting low on one flank and along the underside while the shoulder stays deep green — a dried flower still caught beneath.Week of 3 AugustAn 1884 tomato on 4 August, broad and squat and wider than tall, its shoulder divided into pronounced rounded lobes by vertical creases with a small corky ring at the stem scar, matt whitish-green with darker green down in the grooves.Week of 3 AugustAn 1884 tomato on 4 August, still pale green washing to whitish-cream on the lit side and stippled all over to a matte suede, its calyx lobes twisted right round into loops with two dried papery and one snapped short, in hard late sun from the right.Week of 24 AugustAn 1884 tomato plant on 26 August, six or more heavy green fruit held inside the wire ring it is caged in, the biggest of them broad and deeply ribbed across the shoulder, with nasturtium leaves crowding in below.
