pineapple sky
2004~Sep

  • elms

  • marking time

  • flying in

  • rhubarb

  • domadoes




  • Sep 26, 2004
    ....the latest

    domadoes

    I was duly overwhelmed by my cherry tomato crop, having planted it and then buzzed off on vacation. I knew the domadoes (Tr., joc.) were in need of physical supports, but they ran away growth-wise in the ten days of July that we were away. Consequently, about half of the crop was lost to ground-borne critters (Tex., "creatures"), like slugs. I am told that slugs can be controlled by placing saucers of beer near afflicted plants. This seems to me to be a rather dubious use of our national resources, and likely to be subject to quick constraints by your ten-cent municipal regulators with million-dollar budgets; but I will try it next year.

    Even so, I was giving away cherry tomatoes, and they are still coming, here at the end of Sept.

    These cherry fellows are a perfect round item less than an inch in diameter, and so sweet that they are more like a berry than a vegetable. I also planted Italian tomatoes, which came along modestly, but I actually haven't tasted one yet. In Italy, they chop the entire bush down and band them together in bunches that they sell by the road.

    Today, (26th of Sept, 84^F, perfect blue sky), a neighbour wrapping up his garden for the impending winter, gave me a Mexican tomato, of which hitherto I had never heard. The bush doesn't look or smell like a tomato plant, and it doesn't ripen red, more slight yellow.

    I haven't tasted the Mex tomato yet either - but for your interest, attached is a photo taken today of:
    a. cherry 'matoes,
    b. regular 'mato;
    c. two Italian 'matoes, firm and kind of pear-shaped;
    d. Mexican 'matoes.


    ~krm