Book Review: Tomatomania! A Fresh Approach to Celebrating Tomatoes in the Garden and in the Kitchen

In this book words are as important as the juicy pictures. One warning before you read now anyfurther. If you didn’t grow tomato yet, there is high possibility that after going through this book you will join the club of tomatomaniacs worldwide! If you are not afraid, give me your hand and let me tell you about ‘Tomatomania! A Fresh Approach to Celebrating Tomatoes in the Garden and in the Kitchen’

Red, green, orange, yellow orbs appearing on the plants from nowhere… from the light, water and soil… Well, growing tomatoes might really get obsessive. I know what I am talking about, I went through that phase myself. I wish I could have found a good information source at that time. You know how it is. In Internet information is scattered, you find piece here, piece there and before you put all the pieces together few seasons usually are passing by.

If you don’t want to lose any more tomato growing season and learn about tomatoes, tomato garden and different tomato varieties including heirloom tomato, as much as possible and as fast as possible, you need a book that covers all the aspects of tomato growing subject.

Today I am going to review for you a new book that was published in January 2015,  ‘Tomatomania!’ written by Scott Daigre and Jenn Garbee , so you can make conscious decision and choose the best tomato growing book.

What’s the best about this book? Whether you are tomatomaniac, tomato eater that dreams to turn to tomato gardener, or you already are tomato gardener, you will find interesting information in the book.

‘Gardening is not a rational act’ as Margaret Atwood said, which is cited in the foreword written by chef Claud Mann, host of Dinner&Movie on TBS.

This book presents also organic tomato growing techniques and lots of tips for only 29$. Actually I could make a challenge: find any useful tip about growing tomato that is not covered in “Tomatomania”. Then, all home-grown and talented investigators, ‘Agathas Christies’ and ‘Sherlocks’ unite! BTW, if you find anything let me know.

Tomatomania covers following categories:
- Finding best spot in the garden.
- How to choose best tomato varieties for your garden.
- Deciphering tomato seedlings labels.
- How to treat the seedlings from the very beginning to give them best start.
- Staking, tying, pinching or not pinching?
- Critters and other challenges.
- Best moment to harvest tomato.
- Recipes from tomato martini to tomato-vanilla bean marmalade.

The minus I personally find in the book is too long tomato recipe section, which is approximately  1/3 of the book, starts at 129 page. This is a minus for me, but might be advantage for you. But for that I skip one star in the rating. 

The book is especially useful by the folks living in California, warm US states, or in other Mediterranean climate regions of the globe. Just want to be clear on that. This doesn’t mean that the book is not useful for colder climate tomatomaniacs, you just need to know that if you live in colder climates you need to apply your local tomato maintaining tips as well, but you already know that, don’t you? For me this means one star less.

My rating: 8 out of 10 stars

The book is easy to read and contains lots of photos.

Get your copy of Tomatomania!: A Fresh Approach to Celebrating Tomatoes in the Garden and in the Kitchen

Have you read any great gardening books? Give your recommendations with your reasons why in comments below. Looking forward to discovering some great gardening books.

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 2015
Pages: 210
Available here: Tomatomania!: A Fresh Approach to Celebrating Tomatoes in the Garden and in the Kitchen
ISBN-978-1-250-05728-0