I find that tomatoes grow way too fast and I don't do anywhere near enough regular maintenance to keep them in a portable/potted state so they just explode and rot away at the end of the season. Peppers have a much slower, less explosive growth to them so are easier to maintain. A lot of times I'll just leave stuff in the pots but put them on top of the raised bed. I do that now with a lot of my herbs. I even have a few herb pots in the front flower bed, sitting on rocks, etc, so that the automated sprinklers keep them watered daily while they get lots of sun.
For example: The misters come on for 5 minutes a day at 2am to water the fern on the front step and the other plants close to the house. Makes a huge difference, especially during these crazy hot summer days.
Along the same lines, the other thing I used to do was plant romaine in the front flower garden. For some reason, the local rabbit horde never realized that there was lettuce in the front beds... but did serious damage to the raised beds in the back yard. Seems kind of weird or out of place to see lettuce grow beside the front walk to the house, but it worked. (then I got a dog and it was no longer a concern)
Absolutely true about the difference in growth rates. I'm going to try an experiment this fall on one just to see how it goes. Prune the hell out of it in September, hope for a little regrowth for two or three weeks, and then repot it. Or some variation thereof.
I would suggest taking a couple good suckers off the main plant, water rooting them, and then going from there. Tomatoes do NOT like being dug up, and to properly bring them in, you need to get all the dirt of the roots to treat for critters.
Ain't nothing wrong with that. I love thick slices of good tomatoes, with some salt and pepper, and a dash of balsamic vinegar, sometimes with a bit of fresh basil... super tasty!
I just brought this to a pool party at the inlaws today. Fresh sliced tomatoes right out of the garden, topped with mozzarella, basil (also home grown), balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious. The other night I picked a bunch of grape tomatoes and brought them to garage night. We drank beer and bourbon, did some bong hits and ate the tomatoes like popcorn. It was fantastic.
Bocconcini cheese balls are also a great cheese to have like that... little cheese balls with a great taste. Usually my go-to over mozza. I also like using coarse kosher salt as you get big pieces of salt that really hit better than any kind of normal table salt.
I also like making a good bruschetta with meaty tomatoes like that. Give them a rough chop, a healthy salting, then throw them in a plastic colander if you have one (if you only have metal, wrap them up in cheesecloth and put them in a plastic container; the acidity in the tomatoes doesn't react well with metal) for a few hours, then mix with some fresh chopped garlic and finely diced shallots, freshly chopped basil, and spoon onto some freshly toasted bread. You can also add a balsamic glaze for a bit of sweetness.
If you heavily salt cucumbers and put them in the fridge for a few hours, they dry out a fair bit (the salt pulls out the water) and intensify their flavours really, really nicely, and make a nice addition to bruschetta when finely chopped up.