More Tomatoes

You know, I talked to my father from 9 until almost 3 this morning and what did we talk about? Other than the side of beef I'm gonna purchase, we talked about tomatoes. My father, being a man who grew up on garden fresh food, loves his Arkansas Traveller, Big Boy, Better Boy and Early Girl tomato varities and he's been growing them for years. But unlike my father, I plan to save my seeds instead of paying $2.50 a plant every spring. My father guided me into a seed saving conversation saying "..take your tomato, cut it in half, get the seeds out, dry them in the sun, then stick them in the freezer.." to which my response was "If its that easy, why are you paying $2.50 a plant for them?" He actually said because he supposed he was lazy. Uh-huh.

But I did get something out of it other than sarcasm. I learned about how important the varity of the tomato is and once you find that perfect one for your purpose, you'll never use anything else and swear by it until your dying breath. My father grows several different kinds because he uses them for different things, all for eating, but each of them will add their own distinct textures, sweetnesses, acid content, flavors and aroma to whatever it is that you're cooking up or canning. He also doesn't save the seeds from these delicious tomatoes because they are all hybrids and the seeds don't do anything for him.

This presents an interesting delima for the self sustaining life I want to lead. I don't want to be bound to put more money in the pockets of "the man" so that I can have my tomatoes every year. I'm trying to get away from that. So I told my father that I'd split heirloom seeds with him. I'll buy them, I'll send them to him and he can grow them and save the seeds. With luck, he'll get addicted to an heirloom varity of tomato instead.

Interestingly enough, he talked about a 2 pound tomato that the plant grew to be 18 feet tall. I'd like to see that one myself. I'll try to find out the name and post it.