* Did you know that tomatoes were originally thought to be poisonous? The tasty tomato did not gain acceptance in the U.S. until 1820, when Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate a basketful of tomatoes on the courthouse steps in Salem, New Jersey on September 26, 1820.

The assembled crowd expected him to drop dead, but when the Colonel suffered no ill effects, the tomato was on it’s way to become the most popular vegetable grown by backyard gardeners today!