What was I thinking?
Back in April, when I planted 24 (that's 24 with a twenty and a four) tomato plants, I was craving tomatoes. Those purchased in the store have a cardboard taste to me, even those which claim to be "hot house" or "vine ripened." (You know they're lying when the "vine ripened" ones aren't yet ripe and they are clearly off vine.) I also don't know where those store-boughts have been. Who knows what kinds of pesticides and such they've been sprayed with?
I understand wanting a bumper crop of tomatoes back then, when I had cravings, before it was 110 in the shade. But really, Char, TWENTY-FOUR????
Last year, I got on a fresh salsa kick. Practically every tomato to come off the vine (for real vine-ripened) got partnered with some peppers, a little cilantro, a little lime juice. Heaven. I completely lost my taste for El Paso Salsa. Or Frito-Lay. Or even one of those designer labels which makes salsa out of unnatural vegetables and fruits. Peach salsa? Truly unnatural. (Tho' I must confess my son makes a mean pineapple salsa.) Canning the salsa results in the tomatoes being cooked to death which doesn't taste at all like the fresh stuff.
The other Big Mistake I made was to plant mostly Roma tomatoes. For the uninformed, Romas are paste tomatoes. I envisioned making and canning lots of spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce to hold me over this winter. Too late, my elderly neighbor who I consult about all things gardening told me she never, ever planted Romas, on account of they taste like store-bought tomatoes. Mea culpa.
She's right, by the way. Don't ever plant Romas if you want a real tomato. Their only advantage is, they make a pretty dense sauce. But it tastes like you took store-boughts and made a sauce.
I did plant 4 Cherokee Purples which, I'm told, are on the same taste scale as Brandywines. Not only do they taste really good, they turn all shades of pink, red, purple and white. Truly heaven.
I also had some of last year's Brandywines volunteer, so I left them to grow. Or maybe they're German Johnsons. I even had something I call O. Henry tomatoes last year. So called because they were grown from a wonderful tomato I had at that restaurant in Greensboro called O. Henry's. I swiped the seeds off my plate onto a napkin and shoplifted them home, they were that good. They are later bearing than the Romas, so I'm still waiting for that wonderful, acidic taste that belongs to the lowly O. Henry's.
All of the above mentioned tomato varieties are called "heirloom"...that is, they breed true, unlike all those hybridized monstrosities which have bragging, bold names like "Better Boy" and "Big Girl" and "Beefsteak". Nope, these tomatoes keep their marriage vows and don't have red-headed children when their husband is not.
Did you know that, botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits and not vegetables...that is, they are the product of a flower and a bumblebee? Did you know that the Europeans used to call tomatoes "poison apples"? They truly thought that tomatoes were poisonous, on account of they hadn't discovered them first. Stupid Europeans.
I also don't know so much about those folks who claim that our Universe was created by an Intelligent Designer. I mean, I could design a better world with one hand tied behind my back...particularly a world in which vegetables and fruits would ripen in the winter. That way, canning wouldn't be such a killer. Nothing I like better than to keep all four burners cranking on my stovetop when it's a record-breaking, heat-stroke-inducing day. Not.
I realize now that I should have stuck with last year's number of plants (12) and not bought any more cages. Because next year, I'll no doubt look at all the cages and think I have to plant that many tomatoes.
I further realize that I'm rhapsodizing at length about my tomatoes so I won't have time to go out there, collect all those Romas and make sauce when it's 110 in the shade.
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