I’m going to take a break from the art-school narrative to share a memory. I’m planting my spring garden this weekend. That always makes me think of Momma and Daddy. Gardening in the warm months was what my parents did for fun, and by “gardening” I mean “vegetable gardening.” To them, there was no other kind. Usually, Daddy would till up a not insignificant patch next to their suburban ranch house and plant the staples—tomatoes, squash, peppers—as well as the odd experiment, as in the year they grew some beautiful cabbage. There was one year in particular that was different. My father worked in a cotton mill, and one hot summer he brought home a pick-up truck load of “motes,” as in the biblical speck of dust. However, at the mill it was a word for the husk and debris that was “carded,” or combed, from raw cotton. Essentially waste, it accumulated by the ton. Daddy dumped his truckload of motes right in the middle of the backyard and contained it with a short circular enclosure of concrete reinforcing wire. This unsightly pile sat sweltering and festering and rotting through the better part of a year. The next spring, my father and mother planted their tomatoes in the remaining compost. I was grown and working as a young newspaper reporter that year, and on a visit home I recorded the results with my camera. I have black and white photos of my mother, who wasn’t a short woman, in the midst of a jungle of tomato plants higher than her head, hoisting tomatoes the size of small cantaloupes. They produced cross sections larger than a slice of loaf bread. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.
Does anybody really say “toMAHto?”
By Jimmy Johnson
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41 responses to “Does anybody really say “toMAHto?””
My “garden” is a 4×4 raised bed. This year I decided to take a break from growing tomatoes for the squirrels to eat and have planted native butterfly and bee friendly wildflowers. Maybe I’ll grow food again next year.
For years, we raised rabbits for food. The waste that collected under the cages we tilled into the garden. Wonderful stuff.
As an incorrigible academic, I’ve always wondered about Ruth, but wouldn’t want to mess w/ the Day’s grandfamily.
Peace,
I’ve added cotton-seed hulls as a garden amendment several times. It is always funny to see the wisps of cotton drift up to the surface after a rain! Smaller gardens for me in the past few years since the incident with the knees. I planted only 22 tomato plants this year. Jet Star is the primary slicer and San Marzano is the one I’m growing for sauce. I have a few other varieties, but not as many as the years when I’d have 80-100 plants. The only other produce I’ll have is yellow squash and a very small patch of sweet corn (Peaches and Cream).
Not as big as the slice of bread, but some tasty tomatoes none-the-less! Bacon and tomato sandwiches ARE summertime to me.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153331203485659&set=pb.525915658.-2207520000.1525443173.&type=3&theater
You should try mushroom compost. You don’t have to wait for it to fester.
When a former in-law’s grandfather downsized and sold off his house on a large lot, he kept the corner of the property that included his former compost heap and built a new, smaller home. Guess where he planted his garden 🙂 I heard that the okra was over 6 feet tall the first season and can vouch for the delicious tomatoes a few years later.
When I went to this nest about 0900, all four eggs were gone, and it noisy. Two honkers arr., honking noisily, and stood there, protesting. Now they’re sitting on the nest. Wonder if the displaced redtails had ejected honker eggs. TBC
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/red-tailed-hawk-nest-camera
My mom used to have horses and so she used horse manure that had weathered a few years on her garden. It’s full of weeds, but boy does the garden grow.
There’s a new white item that is likely an egg.
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/red-tailed-hawk-nest-camera
Peace,
Now there are two, most likely goose eggs [not their academic meaning].
Wow, a slice of tomato for a slice of bread! And was it tasty as well? Mmmmmm think of how that would be with bacon. YUM . OR grilled with butter and herbs. (ok it isn’t really grill when I do it, just cooked in oven) Did your mom have to put up a lot or were you able to eat it/ gift it all?
The grandparents had a worm farm for a while. Castings / old dirt made super compost. And the chickens added their bit, too. When they first broke ground on the homestead in FLorida, the shack was something like 20×60 ft…..40 of that feet was for chicken house. Eggs, fresh chickens raised income while Pop was away. (Hmmm I think I’ve told that story before. Sorry. But it is a good one) Vegetable and flower gardens. And large blueberry patch and beehives later.
Gee, I miss them. Even if they could outwork me any day of the week. 🙂
But memories are good.
“Does anybody really say “toMAHto?”” A news reader on a local Utah station is from London. She certainly says it!
“Let’s call the whole thing off!”, right?
Yep:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Let%27s+call+whole+thing+off!&view=detail&mid=C445E2EB53CC80F6C8D5C445E2EB53CC80F6C8D5&FORM=VIRE
Peace,
Bird has been incubating in the Great Spirit Bluff nestbox, but all 4 eggs are still unhatched.
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/peregrine-falcon-cam
Peace,
Just thinking of how those tomatoes must have tasted is making me feel faint !
I and a large chunk of my family (nuclear and extended) say to-mah-to. My wife doesn’t, and so far our children are going her way. I’ll recover eventually.
Skipping back to art for a minute, I recall someone in the Village saying they liked the Steve Canyon comic strip. If you’re still reading these posts, here’s something you ought to like: http://loac.idwpublishing.com/product-category/steve-canyon/
As a tyke, I loved cold sliced tomatoes smothered in raw chopped onions with a vinegar dressing. In retrospect, I guess I didn’t really enjoy the red slices as much as I enjoyed snarfing up the delicious dressing and raw onions! Then, one year, our small crop tasted rotten to me – every one of ’em – and I haven’t enjoyed them since except in sauces, ketchup, and the like.
I am, however, greatly impressed by the size of your family’s tomatoes, JJ.
Dad had a compost pile. The earthworms were as thick as your little finger.
Two Canada geese, btw us and the eggs, presumably:
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/red-tailed-hawk-nest-camera
Peace,
Too bad there’s no way to package the virtual manure that’s so freely available on the InterWebNet and use it for plant food.
Not speaking of this blog, of course. Usually. 🙂
Jimmy:
Any chance that you will post the B&W photo of your mom in the tomato jungle? If you would rather not show your mom, do you have any photos of only the plants?
If anybody else cares to try it: https://www.homedepot.com/p/2-cu-ft-Cotton-Burr-Compost-50050074/300866693
I have used cotton burr compost for years. The stuff you get isn’t very hard but it does. Eventually she and tightens heavy soils. In South Louisiana we used bagasse.
Someone can look that up.