Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA stem at the soil line on 7 June, shot so close that only its base is sharp: ridged with a swollen flange down one side, haloed in long tangled white hairs, and studded low down with corky knobs of root breaking out through the skin.Week of 8 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 9 June, shot after dark with a flash that picks out the pale fur along every stem and leaf underside and throws a hard plant-shaped shadow across the grass, the background dropping away to black behind it.Week of 8 JuneA Manitoba tomato on a damp overcast 12 June, its saw-toothed leaflets dusted all over with fine water droplets and one yellow star flower just breaking at the top of the stem, the woodland behind it blurred to a soft green wall.Week of 8 JuneA Manitoba tomato drawn thin on 14 June, two bare woody stems below and then long arching growth with its compound leaves spaced far apart, potted up on an upturned bucket lid in a timber-framed shed and lit only by a window at the back.Week of 8 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 14 June, sprawling soft-stemmed in every direction and wilting over the raw bark-edged rim of the wooden bowl it stands in, indoors under a strip light with a caged pink fan turned on it from the shelf above.Week of 8 JuneA hairy green stem split open down its length on 14 June, both lips of the dark fissure crowded with knobbly pale-cream blisters, and clear film wound around that whole stretch and tucked down onto the mix, wrinkled and beaded with moisture.Week of 15 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 17 June in low warm side light, one yellow flower hanging with its petals swept back and a young hairy truss standing at the stem fork above it, its leaflets showing paler and finely hairy where they turn underside up.Week of 15 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 17 June with its stem base collared in clear film, a torn strip of printed bag knotted over the top to hold it in place and a small green side shoot pushing out just below, bright low sun raking across the mix.Week of 22 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 25 June with its first two fruits just set, each a round pale green swelling behind narrow hairy sepals, and one bud left on the same shoot, its gray-green leaflets softly downy and jagged, the grass beyond burnt pale.Week of 29 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 29 June, perfectly round and matte under a faint bloom with its five calyx lobes swept back over the top and the flower still shriveled underneath, hanging where hot low light and deep shade meet in one frame.Week of 29 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 1 July, a pale green globe still downy and ringed darker across the shoulder with the withered flower hanging off its blossom end, held under a swept-back star of hairy sepals in hard midday sun.Week of 29 JuneA Manitoba tomato on 1 July that has not stood up yet, its main stem lying flat along the compost with small extra leaflets tucked in between the main pairs, and the taller plants of the same sowing already bushed out behind it in hard sun.Week of 6 JulyA Manitoba tomato on 7 July, all leaf still but for one hard pale fruit tucked in high behind a leaf, its newest growth coming pale yellow-green over darker lower leaves, with a nasturtium in yellow and orange flower at its foot in hazy sun.Week of 6 JulyA Manitoba tomato on 7 July, shot from inside the plant so its shaggy white-haired stems cross the frame — one fruit at the center, round and dimpled at the stem end with water beaded along its shoulder, a nasturtium in orange flower alongside.Week of 20 JulyA Manitoba tomato on 20 July, still green with darker stripes running down from the shoulder and short pale hairs resolvable right across the skin, on a plant so bristly that every side shoot stands out white against the hard unfiltered sun.Week of 20 JulyManitoba tomatoes on 20 July, seen out through the plant in the foreground with one thick pale stem crossing the whole view, small green clusters and reflexed yellow flowers down the row, and beyond them grass going dry in patches under deep blue sky.Week of 20 JulyManitoba tomatoes on 24 July, two on one bristled truss with the dried flower still capping the smaller of them, and open flowers alongside with their petals bent right back off a pale central cone, the woodland beyond gone flat in hard midday light.Week of 17 AugustA Manitoba tomato on 17 August, still green and matte under a sheet of rain, the biggest drops swelling into lenses that magnify the skin beneath and a bead caught on the tip of nearly every hair of its calyx, marigolds blurred behind.Week of 24 AugustA truss of six Manitoba tomatoes on 27 August, five of them still green and the sixth turning at the front — yellow overall with pink already showing at its blossom end — under compound leaves flecked with dark spots.Week of 24 AugustA Manitoba tomato indoors on 29 August, still mostly green but bronzing across one shoulder and beaded with water, a long healed split curving down its side and the dried star of the calyx scar left at its crown.Week of 14 SeptemberManitoba tomato on 14 September, a single ribbed fruit turning from green at the stem end to dusty rose and orange-red below, the shriveled papery calyx still curled at the crown. Warm overhead light indoors at night.Week of 14 SeptemberA Manitoba tomato stands upright on its blossom end on 14 September, six or seven near-black lines fanning from the pale blossom scar across dusky rose and green shoulders. Flat kitchen light; a cut half lies on the magenta board below.
