I am deeply impressed by how this book covers the main issues in tomato farming while remaining entertaining. It is a story well told and worth your investment if you, or someone you know, have an interest in growing or eating good tomatoes. The author explains how we came to have nice looking but flavorless tomatoes in the store and how farms both big and small are trying to improve. At the same time, he makes clear why year-round, blemish-free, great tasting tomatoes are unlikely any time soon, if ever.
It's unfair for me to say that the book doesn't go into enough depth. As a member of a small farm that grows and sells tomatoes at a farmers market, my appetite for knowledge about growing tomatoes is pretty much bottomless. I would have loved a book twice as long that spent a bit more time on the many different types of tomatoes you might come across and how they are affected by local growing conditions, diseases, and pests. Would that book have been as enjoyable to the majority of folks as this was? Probably not. But if this book encourages a few of it's readers to wander out to a local farmers market and pay a little extra for a good tomato, then it did both of us a favor and I am grateful.
