Home-Grown in SOMA

August brings the dog days of summer, vacations down the shore, back-to-school sales and the most anticipated arrival of them all—the Jersey tomato.

That's right. The time has come to reap the fruits of our labor, literally. Ripened, home-grown goodness is bursting from the vines at both the Maplewood and South Orange community gardens. And, while technically the Jersey tomato is the Ramapo—a beefsteak hybrid variety, the local gardens are full of a dizzying array of all shapes, colors and sizes: Tomatoes with names like Green Zebras, Ponderosa Pink, Jersey Devil, Coyote and Black Bell, as well as the more common varieties of Early Girl, Sweet 100 and Big Boy.

The official state vegetable (or is that fruit?) is in good hands here.