Tomatoes
How very sad to read of Editor Kathy Mudd’s tomato plants that have gone kapoot and not producing any more. At least she had one home-grown-tomato-mayonnaise-white bread sandwich before the last rites.
My premium beefsteak tomato plants grew to a height of some four feet, blossomed like crazy. Little green tomatoes followed and got larger and larger. Anticipation of that first bite of a tomato sandwich made my mouth water. And then, the rains came and not the gentle patter to wet the leaves and drift slowly to the roots, but sudden torrential downpours, frog stranglers. Ever see a frog strangled? Not pretty.
After the rain, sometimes referred to as thunder bursts, the tomato plants begin to revive, only to be punished by 90-100 degree afternoon heat.
They hung on, brave little soldiers. Some afternoons as the sun beat down on them their little limbs hung lifeless to the tomato cages. They begged for cool water. After a shower of tap water, they perked up. Alas,after days of relentless sun and thunder bursts, the bottom leaves turned yellow.
They did their best producing a couple of medium-sized tomatoes, but soon began to rot on the vines. A similar tale that Kathy wrote about in her musings.
Cucumber plants that I nurtured from seed grew and grew wrapping their tender tendrils around anything that stood still. Plenty of little cucumbers started to appear. Well, I lamented at least we might get a jar or two of gerkins. One day a large cucumber peeked from under a large leaf, it was an optical allusion as it was only about two inches long. The cucumber plants followed the tomatoes as they also gave up the ghost and went kapoot.
A wise Southern woman once said something like this in a tear-jerker chick flick, “Steel Magnolias”, as she was asked why she always had so many tomatoes to give away, the infamous character, Weezer, snapped back and told them that Southern women were required to grow tomatoes and wear funny hats.
Maybe that is our tomato production problem, Kathy, we need some funnier hats. LOL