As I have written earlier the tomato is one of the most popular vegetable garden plants. With all of the "things" that can go wrong in the growing season one may wonder why we plant instead of just going to the farmer's market and buying our vine ripe tomatoes there. In the long run, buying a tomato is probably cheaper! I must admit the thought has crossed my mind these last few seasons for I have had the bad luck of blossom end rot and many of the other common maladies that can strike a tomato plant. I, however, am not one to quit just because the going gets a little tough so I plan to plant more tomato plants than I have in the past AND I am going to try starting my own from seed! I am going to take the tomato hornworm by the horns and toss it out of the garden when I see one! I am going to learn all I can to be successful growing, wonderful, delicious tomatoes in my own backyard and in soil!
Why grow your own tomatoes? Because you can! The process may not be as easy or as cheap as we would like in our modern instant gratification generation but it is a healthy process all the way from planting to eating! According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture today's tomato has 30 percent less vitamin C and thiamine and 62 percent less calcium than it did in the 1960's with a whopping fourteen times more sodium! (Hope my source is correct!) Even if the figures above are not correct, and farmers don't use all the pesticides that I read about and green house tomatoes are great and hydroponically grown tomatoes are super good I will plant my tomatoes in soil, enhanced with good compost, in my own back yard! Call me old fashion but there is something wrong with growing the food we eat in sterile, artificial conditions. A garden is in itself an artificial growing condition as we try to pull the weeds and plant what we want where we want. We do not allow nature to be will- nilly and grow what it wants where it wants. But my garden is as artificial as I want to get. I want to live with in the limits of what nature will provide for sunlight, water and nutrients (from good compost). The garden pest is a part of nature. Since the beginning of time there have been "garden pests" and nature has been able to keep things in check. If we step out of the natural setting to grow what we need to eat we will not pay attention to what is happening in our environment that may cause us great harm in the future. If we do not pay the farmer a just wage for the produce they grow they will look for cheaper yet higher producing foods at the cost of less healthy foods, more chemical fertilizers. The food chain is a very important part of life: it provides life! I advocate working the soil in a responsible, just way to ensure we have healthy food for generations to come. Plant a tomato for awareness of what it takes to grow our food and pass on the awareness to others who continue to eat mindlessly.
The journey continues!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Tomato-vegetable or fruit
To make my writing a little easier and perhaps a bit more accurate let me begin this post with a quote from Tomatoland ,by Barry Estabrook, 2011.
"Of all the species that played a part in the great Columbian Exchange-the widespread mingling of plants, animals, and disease organisms between the Eastern and Western hemishperes following the establishment of Spanish colonies in the New World- the tomato surely would have topped the list as the least likely to succeed, never mind to becomes one of our favorite vegetables. Botanists think that the modern tomato's immediate predecessor is a species called S. pimpinellifolium that still grow wild in the coastal deserts and Andean foothills of Ecuador and northern Peru. Inauspicious and easily overlooked, S. pimpinellifolium fruits are the size of large garden peas. They are red when ripe and taste like tomatoes, but picking a handful of the diminutive fruits as a snack would take several minutes. Gathering enough for a salad or salsa wouldn't be worth anybody's effort." p.3
Over time this little tomato mutated into what looked like and tasted like our modern day cherry tomato. This early cultivated tomato was of the variety S. cerasiforme which is now considered a subspecies of
S. lycopersicum - the scientific name for the tomato we eat today!
Moving along it was Hernan Cortes who brought the tomato to Europe in the early 1500's. In 1692 the tomato made its first appearance in an Italian cookbook. The French coined the term "love apple" . In the United States the colonists called the "love apple" tomate, the Mexican name for the tomato.
The journey of the tomato is very fascinating. I highly recommend the above mentioned book, Tomatoland, to any one who would like to follow the tomato's history a little closer than what I have presented here. As to the question, is it fruit or vegetable the US congress of 1883 determined it was/is vegetable in order to protect American farmers from imports from the Caribbean growers of fresh winter tomatoes. In my research one could defend the tomato as fruit and/or vegetable! Its your call. For me I will refer to it as vegetable as I grow it in my vegetable garden.
The journey continues!
"Of all the species that played a part in the great Columbian Exchange-the widespread mingling of plants, animals, and disease organisms between the Eastern and Western hemishperes following the establishment of Spanish colonies in the New World- the tomato surely would have topped the list as the least likely to succeed, never mind to becomes one of our favorite vegetables. Botanists think that the modern tomato's immediate predecessor is a species called S. pimpinellifolium that still grow wild in the coastal deserts and Andean foothills of Ecuador and northern Peru. Inauspicious and easily overlooked, S. pimpinellifolium fruits are the size of large garden peas. They are red when ripe and taste like tomatoes, but picking a handful of the diminutive fruits as a snack would take several minutes. Gathering enough for a salad or salsa wouldn't be worth anybody's effort." p.3
Over time this little tomato mutated into what looked like and tasted like our modern day cherry tomato. This early cultivated tomato was of the variety S. cerasiforme which is now considered a subspecies of
S. lycopersicum - the scientific name for the tomato we eat today!
Moving along it was Hernan Cortes who brought the tomato to Europe in the early 1500's. In 1692 the tomato made its first appearance in an Italian cookbook. The French coined the term "love apple" . In the United States the colonists called the "love apple" tomate, the Mexican name for the tomato.
The journey of the tomato is very fascinating. I highly recommend the above mentioned book, Tomatoland, to any one who would like to follow the tomato's history a little closer than what I have presented here. As to the question, is it fruit or vegetable the US congress of 1883 determined it was/is vegetable in order to protect American farmers from imports from the Caribbean growers of fresh winter tomatoes. In my research one could defend the tomato as fruit and/or vegetable! Its your call. For me I will refer to it as vegetable as I grow it in my vegetable garden.
The journey continues!
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
The Tomato
The tomato! Purple, pink, green, yellow, orange, stripped, black, chocolate and red! Early, late, determinate, indeterminate, hybrid, heirloom, disease-resistant, oblong, round, squat, patio, bush, climbing,
vining, horn worms, early blight, late blight, nematodes, blossom end rot, blossom drop, curling leaves, sun scald, leaf spot, flea beetles, stink bugs, aphids, blister beetles and Colorado beetles, fusarium wilt, mosaic, bacterial wilt, downy mildew, anthracnose, leafhopper, cutworm, tomato fruit worm, cages, stakes,
fresh, canned, cold hardy, heat tolerant, seeds, seedling, mature, deer, birds, and harvest! Fruit or vegetable?
It is estimated that 35 million Americans grow tomatoes in their back yard. World wide who knows how many! It is by far the most grown "veggie" in the back yard and the competition is mighty to have the first ripe tomato of the season!
So I begin my vegetable garden with the elusive tomato!
(No pictures at this time.)
vining, horn worms, early blight, late blight, nematodes, blossom end rot, blossom drop, curling leaves, sun scald, leaf spot, flea beetles, stink bugs, aphids, blister beetles and Colorado beetles, fusarium wilt, mosaic, bacterial wilt, downy mildew, anthracnose, leafhopper, cutworm, tomato fruit worm, cages, stakes,
fresh, canned, cold hardy, heat tolerant, seeds, seedling, mature, deer, birds, and harvest! Fruit or vegetable?
It is estimated that 35 million Americans grow tomatoes in their back yard. World wide who knows how many! It is by far the most grown "veggie" in the back yard and the competition is mighty to have the first ripe tomato of the season!
So I begin my vegetable garden with the elusive tomato!
(No pictures at this time.)
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