My dad has planted a vegetable garden every summer of my life, until the end of his.

There were organic gardening magazines lying around the house, when the word “organic” was still uncommon. The house we moved to when I was a year and a half old was on a quarter acre and he planted a huge corner of the lot with fruit trees and the summer veggie garden.

My three brothers and I spent our summers barefoot, sticking green bean leaves to our clothes, eating raw beans off the vines – and cucumbers, still warm from the sun, peeled and dunked in a mug that had our own concoction of oil, vinegar and ketchup. The most special treats from the summer garden were the sweet ears of corn and the home-grown tomatoes. Fat, juicy, sweet – there’s nothing like them.

These are Dad’s tomatoes from 2010. It was fun to paint them the next year, just at the time when they’re coming in by the bucket-full. I had a couple of them sitting on my painting table so I could see their true color. 

I was at work at Light Rain, to capture the painting to make prints and I asked Suzy Simms, a friend of my boss, Steve’s to help me name it. Suzy is a kick so I knew she’d come up with something good. It took her about a second and a half – she said “ripe!”  

She’s so right! Ripe they are, and Ripe it is!

September 2011 – 22″x22″ – Watercolor on paper

More from the Vegetables Gallery