Tomato Lament: Growing-up in a small farm-town here in the Mid-West...

[chubbyalaskagriz]

...of course we had a garden. Always in it was lettuce, peas, radishes, green onions, cukes, zucchini, yellow crook-necked squash, string beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, canteloupe, watermelon- and of course tomatoes. YUM!

I remember we used 5-gallon pickle-buckets that I got from the tavern kitchen where I worked to carry tomatoes from the garden to the porch railing where we'd place green and yellow ones to further-ripen in the sun. Used the five-gallon bucket because we had to- that's how many we got almost daily.

I remember when leaving for vacation having to arrange for relatives and neighbors to stop by and pick what they could use during our absence just to make sure tons didn't go to waste during the 1-2 week periods when we were out camping, or such.

Today I recall longingly back to those days. Especially when the stunted l'il plants I try to grow today in pots on my shaded condo patio yield little or nothing at all.

At times I find myself at the farmer's market trying to decide between 4 and 5 huge beefsteak tomatoes- maybe putting one back. Because afterall, they're huge and heavy and since charged by the pound, can get quite expensive.

Oh to have back just a small portion of those we squandered and even tossed away years ago due to huge surpluses and over-bounty!

 

[ChileFarmer]

Kev, we to grew all we ate. Still grow a large garden and can lots of things. Thanks for the memories. CF

 

[ricksrealpitbbq]

My memories about growing tomatoes with my grandfather....... I was the one he picked to fertilize the plants using chicken manure. Oh how I hated that smell. My grandfather had hundreds of tomato plants every year until he died. He sold tomatoes from his front porch and grandma canned the rest. I had the pleasure of using San Marzano tomatoes in a can and they are as close to grandmas that I ever had

 

[jglass]

I remember those big buckets of tomatoes at my grand parents and my aunts and uncles houses. They would get bucket after bucket from a small patch of garden in the back yard. My Papaw had a small patch behind the smoke house of only about 10 tomato plants and they always got tons from it.

Last year the tomatoes at my father in laws did not do well at all. The vines began to die way before the tomatoes even started to ripen. Worms tore holes through a good portion of the tomatoes and the birds damaged the rest. I bought tomatoes at the farmers market several times last year at $1 - $1.50 a pound. The late frost killed most of the blooms on the apple trees at his place so we will not get many apples this fall.
He has replanted a couple of things already that did not come up because of so much rain. None of my herbs he planted seeds for came up the first time. A good portion of the sage plants I got a put out didnt make it because of standing water in the garden. My basil, parsely and dill have to be replanted because they never came up.