It may seem weird to talk about tomatoes in December, but the time has come to say goodbye to my tomato plants from my first year growing them here in Sunnyvale.

Mr. Stripey is a heirloom variety that uniquely produces a red and yellow striped fruit.  I harvested most of these in the summer, but there were a few still growing on the vine, and I found one more good one to close out 2006 a couple of weeks ago.

This one wasn’t as ripe as others, so the red looks a bit pink.  Still, you can see the unique, mottled interior, and based on the fully sliced fruit, appreciate the size.

I noticed on most gardening sites Mr. Stripey doesn’t get very high ratings.  True, the vine didn’t produce a lot of fruit (maybe 6-12 good tomatoes through the season), but I thought it was a lot of fun to have this multi-colored tomato.  We found it very sweet & firm, and definitely colorful.

One of the comments from my last post on my 7 foot tomato plants was that I didn’t include a picture of Mr. Stripey.  So here it is.

Anyway, the vines are coming down next weekend, even though they are still bearing fruit.  I’m pretty sure these frosty mornings are going to kill them soon, and I’m not eager for the first serious rainstorm of the winter scattering tomatoes everywhere.

I feel lucky to live in Silicon Valley, though, where I can actually harvest my garden into December.   Very lucky.