Peatt.net

The yard is still a dirt pile, grass and fence still to come but I didn’t want to lose a perfectly good growing season waiting for all that to get done.  So, I’ve begun by growing heirloom tomatoes in large pots outside.  I got them from Greta’s Organic Gardens, a place in Ottawa’s greenbelt on River road.

The four varieties I chose were completely at random.  I have one black variety called Paul Robeson Angolan, a yellow variety appropriately called Lemon Boy, another yellow called Orange Strawberry, and finally a bi-coloured one  called Hawaiian Pineapple.  When I brought the chopstick of a plant home I didn’t believe they would need a pot each but after one month they are doing fabulously, I think.  I have been staking them and randomly pruning them as I feel like it.  I have decided to go with the school of thought that keeps the suckers in order to get more fruit off the plant, even if the fruit is smaller. 

By the end of June plant had flowers but only my Lemon Boy had actual tomatoes forming out of those blooms.  Many more were opening everyday.  Also, each plant seems to behave differently.  Orange Strawberry is a dense amount of leaves and very tall.  Pineapple has bushed out while Lemon Boy is the thinnest and smallest of them all.

Now, at the end of July, two months into the growing season, each plant has many little tomatoes.  The Lemon Boy has grew just to the top of the doweling stakes and went to work producing a large harvest of perfectly round tomatoes.  All the others have reached well beyond their stakes and I have ignored their calls for height and stability.  Two of the plants had large branches that came off the side and couldn’t support their own weight as the tomatoes grew.  As I pruned them off the plant I was reminded of all the sites I read debating to prune or not to prune the suckers.  I didn’t prune the suckers and as a result Ryan has said my plants look like messy weeds. 

Each tomato plant’s fruit is unique.  Lemon Boy is round and about the size of a large plum righ now.  The Black Angolan are deep green and mysterious looking.  I managed to photograph them at sunset and the light really plays off them in these photos.  The deep folds of the Hawaiian Pineapple gives them a whimsical character and the heart shape of the Orange Strawberry are so dainty.  

The whole growing process is layer upon layer of anticipation, this is what it must be like to have multiple gift giving holidays.  I was thrilled to see my little chopsticks grow inches at a time, so much so that I didn’t want to discourage their growth with pruning.  When the yellow flowers opened themselves I was glad for each one of them and hoped that bees and other critters would be by soon to visit.  I never saw the flying hosts but one by one the flowers wilted and were forced out by little green beads.  I would rub those beads and pray for growth.  I went away and came back to see the little balls were almost full grown and there were so many of them!  Under every leaf, on every branch, all my plants had fruit growing in them.  Now that that fruit is reaching its peak, I keep looking up to the sky for sun and looking forward to the day when I pick those first fruits of the season.