Hardiest Tomatoes Ever

July 29, 2011 
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Every year we try to plant a garden–big emphasis on the word TRY.  This is one of those years when it didn’t happen.  The problem is, Nathan doesn’t like to do anything small.  The last time we had a garden I was pregnant with Ada and although I wanted a small garden near the house, Nathan decided to plant a 2 ACRE garden in one of our fields.  In his defense we had some friends who were planning on doing a lot of the work in exchange for produce and that ended up not working with their busy life.

So, most of the garden was left completely to its own devices.  We did pick some melons and okra but the poor tomatoes withered and died without attention.  Now, I do not eat squash, zucchini, cucumbers, black eyed or purple hulled peas, or most other healthy produce (yes I have been forced to eat my fair share of these in my lifetime and really, really don’t like them.)  Of course, these are the things that Nathan loves and then plants 5 MILLION of.  In case you don’t know one squash plant could feed about 10 families.

Anyway, I don’t have a lot of incentive to go out and pick and put up the billion squash that I won’t eat anyway.  I do make and love pickles but the seed people lied to me and all of the cucumbers were the salad kind that I don’t eat.  The things I enjoy from the garden are the okra (I LOVE okra) tomatoes, green beans, and some of the melons.  The other things I really love–asparagus, artichoke, broccoli, carrots, and spinach–either don’t grow here in our climate or soil, or I have never been able to keep alive…I’m still trying though.  I just found out that young cattail roots taste similar to asparagus so I guess next time I’m craving asparagus I’ll go dig around in the pond mud.

This year I was sad that there would once again be no fresh tomatoes :(  So, imagine my surprise and delight when about 30 tomato plants came up of their own accord in one of our pig pens.  We give the pigs overripe produce from one of the farmers market vegetable vendors and apparently some of the tomatoes seeded themselves.  Luckily this was in a small pen where we had a group of piglets and was easily closed off to allow the tomatoes to grow.  I didn’t have a lot of faith that they would make it, but despite 2 big storms when they were still tiny plants and no other care whatsoever, they have not only grown but thrived.

I had planned to stake the plants and water them but since they seemed to be doing just fine on their own and most of the tomato plants I have “cared” for died, I decided to let them be and see what happened.  These tomato plants have literally not had any water in over 2 MONTHS and they are not only still growing, they are making tomatoes–in 100+ degree heat!  I would love to be able to see the root system on these plants because they must be incredible to be getting enough moisture to stay alive.  I have to give a significant amount of credit to the fertility of this soil as apparently pig poop makes great tomato food (who knew?)  They are also shaded about 1/3 of the day which probably helps.  They are mostly cherry or other small type tomatoes which is fine with me because my favorite thing is to pick and eat them right off the vine–and popping a cherry tomato in my mouth is much easier and less embarrassing than popping a fist sized tomato in my mouth.  

I ate my first fresh tomato just this week and it was heavenly.  If you haven’t had the chance to eat a sun warmed and ripened tomato surrounded by the pungent smell of tomato plants, mmm, you really haven’t lived.  (At least in my opinion–fresh tomatoes make Nathan puke, which is fine by me since I get to eat all of them.)

I’m not sure what I will do next year.  I’m tempted to let the pigs run on our garden spot for a month or so and then just throw tomato seeds out, we shall see I suppose.  For now I will continue to marvel over these tomato plants and enjoy the fruits of their labor.