Right after I started working at FoxCT I made a suggestion to my boss. Wouldn’t a gardening segment be nice?
For many people gardening is a summertime passion. It’s often passed down from generation-to-generation. There’s a lot of interest, but it’s good TV in the abstract.
She said yes!
Last summer and again this year I’ve worked my mini-garden on the south side of the Hartford Courant building. I grow a lot of different crops and flowers. They’re nice, but only one plant counts for me.
I love tomatoes!
My tomatoes are always over-planted! This year my guardian angels, Marlene and Sarah from the UCONN Master Gardener program, implored me to rip out half my tomato plants to give everything a little more room to thrive.
It was like asking a parent to choose a favorite child! I didn’t want to do it. I’m not enough of an optimist to cut back.
As it turns out Marlene and Sarah were right. The tomatoes are growing now as if they’re nuclear powered! I will have more tomatoes than even I can devour.
Tonight I went to fetch my first picking. Not much yet. There was just enough to fill a pint container (after I’d munched the overflow) with pretty cherry tomatoes.
I walked the tomatoes around the newsroom offering them up as if they were some sort of hors d’oeuvres. They were still warm from the Sun and very sweet. The response was positive.
That’s the payoff. Nothing else really counts. Tomatoes are first, everything else is a distant second.
So what is the secret to growing a sweet, tasty (Jersey-style?) tomato, as opposed to the tasteless, waxy imitation that’s sold in most supermarkets and used (because their cheaper) by many sandwich chains? Just seeing the color of yours set them apart from the pale imitation of a tomato many people now settle for.
I too over plant tomatoes……I love them and cannot get enough ! I love giving them away and I love eating them, I started haevesting last week, in another week, I expect to be over run !!! But that is ok, it’s tomatoes 3 meals a day for me until they are gone!!!! tomatoes on toast !
Due to unforseen complications, I have no tomato plants this year… I am (aghast) TOMATOLESS. Ahh, I guess there’s always next year to savor the scent of the sunwarmed tomato and let the savory juice drip down ones’s chin. Avast me hearties, I am a broken gardener…I might just have to walk the plank