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Monday, Oct. 14, 2002 - 4:43 p.m. I would sit here and bitch and moan about not having much of an Internet connection for the past 5 days, but I won�t. Something about the fact that Lease works for our Internet provider causes me to use restraint. Yesterday, the modem was down all day. Codeman had an assignment he needed to work on, and since he couldn�t (and he couldn�t I.M. his friends and such) he was in a foul mood most of the day. When the repairmen finally got our node back up, Codeman came to our bedroom to let me know (so I could post the entry I wrote earlier in the day). It was 9 pm. I left a �doom and gloom� entry, angry that a hard freeze was on it�s way. Like most fall seasons, the first �We are getting a massive, everyone will see it, kills everything in it�s wake!� frost warning was wrong. We had a little frost on the car windshield. Some was noticeable on the garage roof. But none hit any part of my garden. This, after I spent time yesterday picking everything I wanted to save. I now have two shelves in my pantry covered with green tomatoes. The bottom shelf of the �fridge is full of plastic bags containing red and green bell peppers, hot peppers, and eggplant. I think a pot of ratatouille is in the near future. I also picked my first Mr. Stripy tomatoes of the year! Yes, they were planted with the rest of the tomato crop. No, they should have produced fruit way back in August. That would make them (like most heirloom varieties) a late ripening tomato. If you use the standard way of figuring tomato ripening (days from when you place the transplant into the ground), the fastest tomatoes are 55-70 days (Early July around here), the mid-season are 70-90 (late July-early August) and late season are 90-110 days (Late August-early September). That would make the Mr. Stripy a 150 day variety! Crazy! I have planted this old-timer before, but they always produced a few fruit by late August. It is more of a novelty tomato than one I depend on for large yields, but I have thrown a plant or two in of this multi-colored, sweet tomato for the last decade. I have never waited this long to eat one . Here are a couple of pictures of the tomato in question: The first one shows how big they are. The two on the counter are Mr. Stripy, the ones in the bowl are Miracle Sweet, Celebrity, and some other main crop tomatoes. As you cab see, Mr. Stripy is a very large, beefsteak-type tomato. They also suffer from a condition known as �water stress�, which can affect all tomatoes. The fruit ends up splitting near the stem end, leaving a fruit that is more susceptible to rot. Since none of my other fruit show this problem (and I have kept the plants well watered all summer), I think these fruit are just prone to the cracking.
What makes this variety unique is the coloration of the fruit. The outside has a blush-red bottom, with veins of red running up the sides of a bright yellow fruit. When you cut one of these (like I did in the photo below), the inside shows mainly yellow, with hints of red throughout the pulp.
The flavor? Rich, sweet, and slightly less acidic than many tomatoes. The fruit is very heavy for it�s size, with thick walls and little seed to deal with. The one shown cut in the photo ended up in a salad bowl (by itself) with a little blue cheese salad dressing on top. No, I didn�t share. Since I was the only one home, I didn�t want to see it go to waste. If this variety produced bigger crops, it would be one of my main tomatoes. Since it doesn�t, I settle for just a few. That would be only two this year�� I started the garden cleanup at 8 am this morning, and I finished up about an hour ago (that would be 3:15, central standard time). What all did I do in that time? 1.I used my pruners to cut the tomato and pepper plants down, stacked the cages, and bagged up all the cuttings for the recycle man. No, I don�t compost this garden waste. There are too many diseases that can over-winter in the dead vines. This can cause bigger problems the next summer. Since I pick up at least 50 bags of raked leaves from the curbs every fall (for use in my gardens), I don�t feel bad about the 11 bags filling my boulevard tonight. 2. Codeman (who was home after his one class at high school today-his community college class was canceled because of Columbus Day) and I drove to the sand and gravel quarry to pick up some fill sand. Since my soil is so hard, I thought this would help loosen it up (it worked at my work garden, anyway). The minimum charge is $8. The sand costs $6.40 a ton. I ended up with .26 of a ton, weighing down my Hillbilly truck to the point the tires were almost hitting the fenders. It still cost me $8. I had a notion to ask the scale-person if I could come back 4 more times to pick up the rest of my sand, but didn�t. It was enough for my garden, anyway. 3. I drove to the horse farm to pick up my yearly supply of horseshit.. One problem, though: the farmer wasn�t there to open his gate for me. Since he lives close to the county riding stables, I swung over there to see if they would load me up with their brown gold. Did I already mention that today was a Government holiday? Nobody there but private citizens, cleaning out their stables. One of them loaned me an aluminum scoop, and I proceeded to load my truck by hand, one shovel full at a time. Hard work. I filled the truck twice, dumping the smelly mess into my now-empty beds. This shit was HOT! When I say that the horseshit was hot, I mean it was really hot. As I dug deeper into the pile, the temperature rose to at least 125�. Steam was rising out of the back of my truck as I drove home. Since it was actively breaking down, that also meant that it really smelled bad! I had no option but to till it under today. If it sat on the surface for long, one of my neighbors would probably turn me into the health department or something. I will till the soil again once more when I start hauling leaves home . That will still be a few weeks, since everything is behind this year. Here is how the once-full beds look, as of a few minutes ago:
Empty, waiting for the first snow. Nothing will happen again until next March, when the cycle starts all over again.... Enough for now. I think I have kept you here long enough, anyway. I need to catch up on everyone else�s diaries. Hard telling how much has happened, while waiting for our connection to be repaired!
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