I spent a pleasant four hours at a farmer's market keeping a friend company while she tried to shill her handicrafts. It was very fun. Pleasant weather. Perfect breeze. Enough traffic to keep it interesting.
The only problem? It's pretty early for the best vegetables. That's right. I said it. I don't like turnips and radishes and the early vegetables you get from your gardens. Keep your beets.
I bought some onions and some potatoes to roast. I also got some fresh lettuce and endive. I'm sure it will be good. But, like most of the browsers, I was disappointed. No tomatoes. It's too early for them.
I heard a guy on the radio calling tomatoes the 'gateway drug' for home gardeners. Most of us are so disappointed in the taste and lack of flavor in grocery store tomatoes, that we decide to start our own home gardens just for the tomatoes. The idea that memories of good fruits and vegetables would bring people to take up gardening was a wake up call for me.
Do I care enough to do the work a garden requires? I do miss really good tomatoes... maybe I should investigate hydroponics. Can you grow a really tasty tomato without all that sunshine and dirt and insects?
Maybe I should just stick with the farmer's market. Eventually, the really good vegetables will show up.
--Sandee Wagner
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7 comments:
I am often amused at how our society views fruit and vegetables... We're too impatient to wait until the veggies we want are "in season." So then some smart farmer figures out how to make those veggies all year long--and THEN we complain about how it doesn't taste the same and it isn't as good... We forget the fact that we shouldn't be able to get our grubby little hands on this piece of produce for another six months!! So much for the advances of modern science...
Emm,
I couldn't agree more. I'm that spoiled brat. I want tomatoes all year long, but I want them to TASTE like tomatoes. spw
I grow tomatoes every year, and that first juicy ripe tomato that I eat is practically worthy of marking on the calendar.
I've heard that the best flavor in year-round tomatoes is in the grape tomatoes and the cherubs. I hardly ever buy anything else in the winter.
I wonder if Topsy Turvy tomatoes grown inside would have good flavor.
Marilyn,
I don't know... I'm beginning to think that the secret with good tomatoes is the soil. So as long as you did the topsy turvy thing right (on the radio they were suggesting a 5 gal bucket as the poor man's topsy turvey) you'd get good tasting tomatoes. That is definitely one vegetable/fruit that home grown is obvious. spw
Any food that is delicate in transport has to be picked before it's ripe or the transportation destroys it. Foods that continue to ripen after picking don't suffer (hello Mr. banana, I love you) other poor bastards like the tomato just get sprayed with reddening agents and stay tasting like... well... unripe tomatoes!
I say grow em'. In fact I encourage all of you officially to grow them. And then invite me over :)
Jake,
Thus said the guy who doesn't want to be out in the sun... everyone else is doing the veggies and you just get to EAT them. spw
Homegrown tomatoes, homemade biscuits and gravy.
OMG!!! I CAN'T WAIT FOR MY MATERS TO GET RIPE!
(They're what the angels eat.)
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