Too many tomatoes unimaginable? Ask Bill Anderson

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Here’s the haul from one recent day for Bill Anderson and Chris Griego, tomato growing champions.

Last year I wrote about Bill Chris and their hobby -- you could call it an obsession -- of growing tomatoes. They pick thousands of tomatoes every year from their yard in Winnetka. Bill counts them by variety and blogs about them. Two years ago, he counted nearly 11,000. Last year was not as productive. But 2009 could be a big year.

Today they got 241 tomatoes from 38 plants. And they reached more than 4,000 for the year so far. Of course, that includes lots of tiny tomatoes, but some big ones too. And no matter the size, that’s a lot of tomatoes! As Bill wrote, ‘We have tomatoes everywhere! My wife can’t keep up with them.’

Here’s a 27.5-ounce Mexico tomato, harvested a few days ago, the heaviest tomato they’ve ever harvested. They weighed it on a postal scale, he says.

-- Mary MacVean

(Top photo by Chris Griego; bottom by Bill Anderson)

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