Back when we had our first freeze a couple of months back my two outdoor potted tomato plants kicked the bucket. Or so I thought...
A few days later I noticed that there were two small branches that did not freeze coming out from near the base of one of the tomato plants. So I snipped away the dead parts and brought the pot inside. At first I though it might be a bad idea because I have so many plants in my apartment that there just is not room for more. But I made room--and it was not easy--because I love tomatoes.
The tomatoes at Wal-Mart really suck. I'm sorry, but they do. They taste like Styrofoam. Sure they look pretty but they have no flavor. Unfortunately, at this time of year Wal-Mart is the only place to get tomatoes here in my backwater town. Luckily, in the summers we have a farmer's market where I can get fresh organic tomatoes that are so delicious and flavorful that you will immediately have to eat one all by itself. The difference between fresh locally-grown tomatoes and Wal-Mart tomatoes is like night and day.
I have run into a very tiny amount of people who are quite adverse to tomatoes. Quite a few of those people were young people. I can't help but wonder if Wal-Mart tomatoes were the only kind of tomatoes they ever tried. Had any of them had the profound experience of sinking one's choppers into a bright red, juicy, organic tomato straight off the vine? And when I say freshness, I'm taking about less than sixty seconds from the time the tomato is plucked from the plant and the time it first enters your mouth. That is the tomato experience.
This cherry tomato plant that I took inside had provided me with quite a few cherry tomatoes over the course of the summer. When I came home in the late afternoon I would pick a handful before going upstairs to my apartment. They were hot from the sun and the flavor was explosively uplifting. If you're an Aries, like me, you can actually taste the redness of it. Yes, you can taste the color. But don't take my word for it.
Sadly, the farmer's market has been closed for some time. But I now realize that I made the right choice of bringing that tomato plant inside. I won't be utterly reliant on Wal-Mart for my tomato fixes. That tomato plant, crammed between a palm tree and a jade tree, smack-dab in the middle of the window, is flourishing. It is about two feet high now and has quite a few little cherry tomatoes, some of which are starting to turn red. I check them every day and I'm guessing I may have some fresh tomatoes to eat by next weekend. I am getting so very excited by this!
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White Feather currently lives on The Great Plains of Turtle Island. Read more here: White Feather's Page
