When our house guest took off to the farmers market, I was certain that she'd enjoy it. It was early August and that rare moment when the seasons overlap and just about everything you could wish for is there, from the last of the tender greens to the first of the hot-weather fruits and vegetables. Everything, that is, except for that hoped-for array of heirloom tomatoes. They'd be there shortly, though.

"So, how was the market?" I asked when she returned, rather expecting her to tell me how fabulous it was.

"There was nothing there," she replied, extracting bag after bag of produce from her arms. "Well, there were no tomatoes!" she replied.

And that was that.

There is no vegetable (actually, fruit) that is more evocative of summer, the farmers market and memory — even if it's not quite your own — than the tomato. None. Corn comes close. Peaches come close, too. But it's the tomato that breaks or makes summer, and sometimes even defines it.

The big question is, "When are the tomatoes going to be in?"

The first ones sell out in minutes. Those who get them feel smug; those who don't are miffed. It's hard to imagine that one day there will be plenty for all, and then, a few weeks later, there will be none.

Where to begin?

Despite our appetite for tomatoes, we are not undiscriminating. We have become ever more choosy. Years ago we were happy with any old variety that showed up.

Then, when Eremita Campos of Algo Nativo farm near Embudo appeared at the Santa Fe Farmers Market with some 40 different varieties, confusion reigned. What were they like? Which were sharp and which were low acid? What flavor characteristics went with their oddball shapes, startling colors and sizes that ranged tiny to big, big, BIG?

While we now know our Sun Golds, Brandywines and stripy Green Zebras, there are a lot of tomatoes that remain nameless to most of us. And there are some we might have heard about but never, ever seen. At last, there is help in sorting out just what is what in the tomato world — and it hit bookstore shelves yesterday.

Amy Goldman, who has already authored two extraordinary tomes, The Compleat Squash and Melons for the Passionate Gardener, has produced a new book on heirloom tomatoes. Graced with 200 luscious photographs by Victor Schrager, it is a gorgeous work whose modest title, The Heirloom Tomato, From Garden to Table, belies the five tomato-intensive years Goldman spent in her New York state greenhouse and garden growing tomatoes — a dedication possessed by gardeners, scholars, seed-savers around the world, and even the photographer, who has come to share Goldman's enthusiasm for her favorite plants.

It is fitting that The Heirloom Tomato begins with a chapter on growing said tomatoes, for this seems to be the summer that people, in surprising numbers, are starting gardens, many for the first time. A confluence of events have produced a quest for self-reliance, pleasure at the table, and the ability to produce something wonderful and practical, that is food, by dint of our own efforts. And, of course, tomatoes are one of the most compelling reasons for having a garden and the first thing people intend to plant, or at least harvest.

Even if we have to wait until next spring to put it into action, how useful to have a guide that starts with planting the seed and goes onward to address all aspects of growing. Ending up with good tomatoes, as Goldman makes clear, is not a matter of luck, but of persistent care and attention to the plants themselves. A good guide, she describes in exacting detail just what it is we should be watching for and what we should be doing when we grow tomatoes.

Flowers give rise to fruits and the fruits give rise to seeds. A veteran seed-saver herself, it's not surprising that the author tells us, once we've succeeded at growing our tomatoes, how to go about saving seeds for future plants. (The seeds of these heirlooms, unlike hybrids, will come true.) It's also not surprising that Goldman is the board president of the Seed Savers Exchange, one of the oldest organizations devoted to the active preservation of heirloom plants.

You may not have the option of buying highly unusual varieties of tomatoes, and maybe saving our seeds for the future is one of those old arts that we all should know how to do.

The middle section of the book is devoted to tomatoes themselves. Given that there are 5,000 known tomato species suitable for cultivation, selecting but a portion to portray could not have been easy. It was through trialing a thousand varieties that Goldman arrived at her favorites, a parade of stunning fruits.

Some tomatoes are as light as piece of paper, such as the tiny Alberto Shatters (at 1.3 grams), but then there's Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, weighing in at 3.5 pounds. There are tomatoes you've never heard of — Sweet Pea Currant, Sara's Galapagos, Dr. Carolyn, Mr. Brown, Moneymaker and Green Doctors — as well as others you have. Each of these creatures is given its story, how it was named, where it was found, who grew it, its travels and travails in the world — stories that make the fruits seem almost human.

Finally, there is a collection of tomato-based recipes. You'll find roasted tomato crunch Sicilian-style, creamy and smoky tomato soups, grilled beef with stuffed tomatoes and a Spanish tomato bread featuring the Oxheart tomato, "so soft and meaty inside that it can be scraped across a crouton without breaking the crouton." Many of the recipes are familiar tomato intensive dishes, but you just know that with these varieties in hand, they'll be altogether new — and, most likely, improved.

Sampling diversity

The Heirloom Tomato, like any truly impressive work, is based on the passion, patience and wisdom of the author. Through the striking portraits and stories gathered on its pages, one can get a thrilling glimpse of what biodiversity looks like. Plant a garden and you can truly taste it.

In his preface, Cary Fowler, the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, reminds us that diversity is the biological foundation for the evolution of crops, and that it provides evolutionary options. We need options when things don't work, when crops fail. "Without diversity," he writes, "a crop is at the end of its noose."

This is a sobering thought. And it should be, given the relentless erosion of plant diversity today. It's why we have seed banks and people who save seeds. And it's why we might want to be concerned about the accelerating loss of species in the plant kingdom and do something about it — like grow tomatoes.

It's important that we somehow get the feel of diversity lodged in our bones so that we can recognize it, and there is more than one way to do this. One is the fun way, the seductive way: Along with all the scholarship and research that has gone into The Heirloom Tomato, Goldman has traveled well down the avenue of charm, taste and beauty. It's an irresistible path that's rife with attractive hooks that draw you in, page after page. Even if you don't grow any of these luscious fruits, as you look through The Heirloom Tomato, you will feast your eyes and nourish your appreciation for this marvelously crazy and gorgeous diverse world.

And you may just grow one yet.