Need more tomatoes!

[thinking one has not planted enough tomatoes despite contrary evidence]

And one could say the same thing about chilli plants.

Every year, I say to myself that 20 tomato plants are sufficient. We choose new tomato breeds, one per requirement. Last year, we tried Tiger Tomatoes, and Tumbling Toms, one for cooking, the other for eating;  - for want of time to research, these are relatively standard varieties, bought over the counter. Carefully grew them from seed, making sure that there were some spare plants in case of disasters - and ended up with 60 tomato plants. Could not bear to weed a single one out (well, if they show willing, who am I to put a stop to it?), and in the ground they went.
Revisited the pledge made above.

The 2014 harvest. Tiger and random.

This year, we have Maskotka, Currant and San Marzano. San Marzanos for making passata and sauces, Maskotka for salads and freezing, and Currants for just eating off the plant, like smarties.
To be on the safe side, planted 24 seeds of each. They all came up. They are now all in the ground.

Maskotka in progress

However, due to a cunning plan, we have several patches in the garden. Seven patches and a bunch of hanging baskets, to be precise. All plants had their side shoots nipped, and are neatly tied to sticks, because my mother came to house-sit and led by example. Yet, every time I look at a patch, I feel the old fear of not having enough tomato plants. There are only 8 on here! We will run out before the summer ends! Oh, hang on, there is another patch. But is it enough? It is an irrational feeling, especially because tomatoes are very unassuming and easy to grow - we even have a few self-seeded surprise ones in the buckwheat, the chickpeas, the squash patch, in the peas and in between the aubergines.

San Marzano, the saucy plum

Semaroh peppers - apparently temperamental 

and prone to germination failure.

The other fear is more rational. May I draw your attention to the description on the package of Semaroh peppers? It says here, and I quote "germination is not as vigorous as we would like, so we have included extra seed. Please sow more seeds than you require".
We sowed 16 of each Semaroh, Sweet Chocolate, Jalapeno and Scotch Bonnets. The first three are from the brilliant, if cautious, folks at The Real Seed Company, the other one from a bunch of dried chillies that we forgot to eat at some point.
In the airing cupboard they went (with regular daily spa breaks and exercise on the window sill), and now we have chillies coming out of our ears.

While we can deal with a glut of tomatoes (years of practice, and some grateful friends), making sauces, chutneys, stuffed tomatoes, slow-cooked tomato casseroles, Greek salads, barbecued tomatoes, roasted green tomatoes, tomatoes lightly salted on fresh sourdough bread..., chillis are much more difficult to use. Maybe a recipe for chilli chutney?

On the other hand, we are running low on Harissa. The Morito recipe calls for 250g of red chillis. What a lucky coincidence.

Chilli forest. Ignore the random Huazontle plant.