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Almost a Fine Moment Well, it almost happened again. One of those miraculous gardening moments. This time it was with a tomato vine - one I planted with four others in a raised bed I'd solarized during the early part of summer. Of those four different plants and four different varieties, one did well. Extremely well. Almost. I was shooting for a fall harvest of tomatoes. Tomatoes to go with the green beans I was growing for the family's Thanksgiving dinner. The beans ended up in the compost bin after a freeze just before Thanksgiving. Most of the tomato plants went the same way and all were in sorry shape because of nematodes still in the soil. Anyhow, one plant still looked darn healthy with a pretty shade of green and there were quite a few green tomatoes showing. I'd already harvested a few red ones. So I went to the trouble to go out each evening and cover the big bush with sheets and blankets in an attempt to keep the plant from freezing. Then on Friday, December 3, 1999 the weather service said a hard freeze was coming, 28 degrees or colder. I decided my energy would best be spent protecting my citrus and lettuce crop so I went to pick the remaining tomatoes and hope that they'd ripen while sitting in a box. I took a small cardboard box to the garden with me. I soon found out I needed a bigger box. The more tomatoes I picked the more curious I got as to what variety the miraculous tomato vine was. There were big tomatoes, medium sized tomatoes and small tomatoes. Some of the tomatoes suffered from radial cracking which meant the plant suffered from some environmental stress during its short life. Hey, we live in Tucson. In the summer we all suffer from environmental stress. Anyhow I know I had to have stuck a label in the soil at the base of the plant when I planted it. I just had to. I still had memories of the lost bell pepper variety and that happened over five years ago.
It's not that I don't usually have moderate success with my tomato growing because I do. There's always plenty of cherry tomatoes and enough good slicing tomatoes to marinate or make a fair share of good bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. And there's always fresh salsa for the breakfast burritos or any tortilla chips waiting in the pantry. The problem is a lot of vegetable gardeners judge a fellow gardener by the quantity, quality and size of the tomatoes. I actually believe this vine nearly gave me bragging rights. Of course green tomatoes don't count so all I can truly say is, "I was this close." To add insult to injury I pruned away the vine and placed it in the compost bin while constantly looking for the plastic white label that would tell me what it was that I had grown. I figured I would plant the same tomatoes early in the spring and get a bumper crop before June. I found the label! The label that I'd written with one of those permanent black markers. All I could make out on the badly faded label was "T O M". Bummer! Now I swear I can hear my fellow Tucson tomato growers reading this article and you're saying "He's lying! He doesn't want to tell us the variety." Hey, I'm not that way. Really. Fried green tomatoes or salsa, anyone? (2000) |
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