JUICY VICTORY - I WON THE STANDOFF
Here it is, against all odds, the very first ripe tomato plucked from my garden. I ate this beauty, and it was delicious, but before we get to that, here is a little back story.
I wasn't sure the climate was right to grow tomatoes this year. I had them as an experiment, to see if indeed tomatoes can grow properly here. By the way, most of the tomatoes that we consume in this country is imported from elsewhere. We can grown tomatoes here though, and we do, just not enough to satisfy the national demand. After growing these, I'm not surprised at all. It takes so much care and attention.
Tomato plants are so delicate that I'm actually surprised they make it to adulthood. I had to grow them indoors for the first few weeks, just so I could keep an eye on them and nurture them appropriately. It can't be too cold or they'll freeze. I'm not sure how they fair in the heat. I imagine they prefer heat to cold though since they happily grow in the wild tropics with zero care.
Once tall enough, I placed them outside but had to support them with a stick, or they wouldn't have stayed vertical for long. Their delicate stems would have collapsed under the weight of the newly sprung extremities.
After a few months, they got really big. I had to secure them to stronger support using zip ties, otherwise they'd have totally collapsed, especially when they started baring fruit. Tomato fruits are so heavy relative to the stems holding them. It made me wonder if tomatoes were supposed to be ground crawlers like melons and beans.
Another thing is how much water they need. Even though we've had a lot of rain this year, it seemed as though if it didn't rain for just one day, the leaves started to look dull, limp, or even dry. I had to make sure I watered them on those days it didn't rain. Very high maintenance stuff :)
And then came challenge number 3, and perhaps the most troublesome one of all. Squirrels! Those pesky little things had already raided my strawberries and blueberries before I figured out I had to either have a greenhouse for this stuff, or build a barrier around them with a net. I've learnt my lesson this year, next year will be different :)
Last year the cat kept them away, so I was able to have a decent harvest. This year, the cat has been on holiday with the neighbours, so the rodents have gone totally wild.
I have put some nets around the rest of the plants, albeit in a lacklustre fashion, and it has saved the blackberries and tomatoes. At times I've had to run out into the garden to physically chase the squirrels away as they attempted to breach the nets. Crazy little things. Thankfully, though, it appears they don't like green tomatoes. They were also waiting for them to ripen.
I was more than pleased to see I got to the first ripe ones before the squirrels did. They looked so juicy that I was tempted to bite into them right there and then, but I had other plans for them that morning. Besides, they probably had a bit of bird poop on them so I fought the urge :)
When I was a young child, I spent every summer in a small African village. Occasionally we would gather eggs from the hens in the morning and fry them up with some produce from the little farm at the back of the house. You could call it a garden, but it was a little more intense than a garden as far as I can remember, so I call it a "little farm".
Alas! I don't have hens. I know people in the UK and Europe that do, but I don't have the time, knowledge or environment for that sadly. I'm stuck with the stuff I get from Asda, which was what I fried up and ate with these beauties for breakfast.
I can't explain to you how delicious tomatoes are when eaten within the hour of plucking them. It's like that for most fruits actually. I found that the skin was a little tougher than the tomatoes I buy from the supermarket, which made it a little weird to chew, but the taste was astronomically better.
I'm now patiently awaiting the next batch to ripen. They are now about the same size as these ones, but are still green. All I have to do now is beat the darn squirrels (and birds) to it again. 馃崊
Peace & Love,
Ade虂
