Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA Rosso Sicilian tomato on 7 June, gray-green and thickly fringed with white hairs, its lowest leaflets already limp — no flower on it yet, though the bushier plant behind it carries small yellow blooms, the mown grass beyond shadowless in bright overcast.Week of 22 JuneA Rosso Sicilian on 25 June, upright and open with no fruit of its own yet, one yellow flower hanging off a hairy stalk and two or three withered brown ones still at the crown, its stems furred dense white all over, in flat diffuse light.Week of 20 JulyA Rosso Sicilian tomato on 20 July, a flattened pale globe seen from underneath with the whole frame dissolving around it, and the one thing sharp is its calyx, every glandular hair flared out white in the sun coming through from behind.Week of 20 JulyRosso Sicilian tomatoes on 23 July, the upper pair broader than they are tall and lobed from stalk to base with a whitish blush on the sunlit shoulder, four or five more of the same ribbed shape hanging small below them, not a trace of pink on any.Week of 10 AugustA Rosso Sicilian picked on 15 August, ribbed into ten rounded lobes and coloring in rays — hard green wedges still radiating from the crown between bands of butter yellow and apricot, the lowest third flushed salmon-red, on dark slate.Week of 24 AugustTwo Rosso Sicilian tomatoes on 26 August on one hairy truss, both broad and shallowly ribbed and still wholly green, their pointed calyxes spread wide across each crown with the jointed stem furred white between them.Week of 31 AugustTwo Rosso Sicilian tomatoes on 3 September, deeply ribbed across the shoulders and running with rain, still wholly green with more clusters setting smaller below them on the same hairy vine.Week of 7 SeptemberThree heavily ribbed Rosso Sicilian tomatoes seen from below on 11 September — the top one pleated into a deeply scalloped outline, glossy green with a faint pink-peach blush spreading around its blossom end — hanging in soft shade against sunlit trees.Week of 14 SeptemberRosso Sicilian tomatoes on 14 September: the open kraft bag in the foreground holds half a dozen deeply ribbed fruit with puckered shoulders, the two front ones furthest along from green through gold to orange-red, under flat overhead light.Week of 14 SeptemberRosso Sicilian tomatoes on 15 September, two broad ribbed fruits resting on white cloth, still pale yellow-green with a faint pink blush across the shoulders and dried corky scars where the calyx pulled away. Soft indoor light from the left.Week of 21 SeptemberRosso Sicilian tomatoes on 21 September, the front fruit squat and softly lobed at the shoulder, turning from pale green through gold into an orange-red blush that radiates out from the tiny blossom-end scar. Warm indoor light on woven cotton cloth.
