'Losing The Harvest' or 'My $150 Half Green Moldy Tomato'

I was cherrily mix and straining my kefir one morning when I heard Thing 2 reapeating 'Oh No! Domo!! Oh No! Domo!!' over and over again. There is really nothing funnier than a baby saying the phrase 'Oh no!' because usually it is over something trivial and it is rather sweet to see them be concerned over something so small. I thought he was just playing. Perhaps he was having trouble getting his toy trains to stay hooked. But then I saw him sitting on top of the radiator, right next the to our lone tomato that I had recently supported with a quick fix bungee cord trellis. I stopped what I was doing after I heard him continue to repeat 'Oh No! Domo!' a few more times.

I had noticed a few days eariler that the tomato, the only child of our indoor heirloom Abe Lincoln plant was not fully attached to the plant. Though it was not broken off either. I constructed a trellis using some bungee cords to support the fruit lest the weight of it snap the branch. Then I secured the thin branches of the plant to the cords and hung the tiny tomato over the side to keep it safe and supported. It had been 2-3 weeks since we had first discovered the fruit. It had about tripled in size. But it was clear to me that it was not done and it may double in size again before it began to turn red on the vine. I walked over to Thing 2 but I already knew what I was going to see. My once and future tomato was lying on my floor, green and hard.

Thing 2 looked at me with a very sad face. I knew he hadn't picked it, per se. But I suppose the tomato had just been hanging on by a thread. He probably just tapped it and it fell on the floor. I was really disappointed, but how can you be upset with cheeks as chubby as his? I sighed, picked up the tomato and placed it in the bowl alongside our farmer's market and CSA tomatoes on our countertop. I thought, 'At least we'll get to eat this one even if it is small.'

I don't know alot about gardening, either indoor or outdoor. So I don't know the optimal time to pick a tomato. Should one allow it to ripen on the vine? And if so, how ripe should it be? Should one pick a tomato when it begins to turn from green? Either way, I was pretty sure that picking a tomato when it was very underripe was a bad idea. I knew the tomato would turn red if left on the countertop, but I wasn't sure if it would be fit to eat. Or if it was fit to eat, I wasn't sure if it would be delicious.

Since I began the great O'Brien tomato fiasco of 2011, we have had dozens of flowers and all of them have died and shriveled up and fallen off the vine. This was the only tomato that was born between the two plants. I believe that I have 3 or 4 more tomatoes on the way, but boy oh boy they have been slow growing. I don't have alot of faith that any delicious tomatoes will materialize. Overall I have grown a little tired of this grand experiment. It has been alot of work, daily watering, about $150 of investment and a fair amount of feeling foolish as I take an electric toothbush to the flowers to attempt to pollinate them. There has been little, well really no payoff. And now that my only tomato had been tragically growth restricted, I was feeling over the whole thing. I am going to hang in there and keep watering the plant in the hopes that those 3-4 tomatoes do grow. And I am going to try and pollinate the remaining flowers in a different way. And I am thinking of pruning both plants to encourage new shoots. Right now the only new flowers are coming from new shoots. And there is no more room for new shoots to grow. We'll see if this can continue into the off season.

After all my malaise I was even more disappointed to awake one morning and find this...



As my tomato began to turn blushingly red one half stubbornly remained green and proceeded to mold. I weighed two heavy questions, do I eat the red part? Or let this one go? I decided that since this could very well be my only tomato of the season, I had to try it. I couldn't throw the only tomato in the garbage and say I had never tried it!

I cut off the still good red part. Only about a teaspoon of tomato was still good. I cut it in two pieces and..gulp..took a bite. It was pretty good. The mold certainly hadn't affected the whole tomato. The taste was very summery and had the grassy taste of an heirloom variety. But it did have an awfully thick skin. I am guessing that is because it was young and underripe. Overall, not a winner.

Tomorrow I will still water the tomato plants. But, I am kind of counting down the days until winter.

To read the previous indoor gardening posts click here:

The Hanging Garden of Washington Heights

On Flowering Tomatoes and Daughters

And Just Like That We Have a Tomato!

This post is shared with Fight Back Fridays and Traditional Tuesdays

And Just Like That, We Have a Tomato

The conversation went a little something like this...

Me: {Thing 1}, come back to the table and finish you lunch.

Thing 1: Oooh Mommy! One of our tomatoes hatched!

Me: {Thing 1}, I mean it. Get off the radiator and come back and finish your ham.

Thing 1: But there is an itty bitty baby tomato over here. I told you the toothbrush would work.

DH: {THING 1}!!! This is what we have been talking about, you need to listen the first time we ask you something!

Me: Thank you {Thing 1}.

Thing 1: Since we grew that tomato, I am going to eat that tomato. But only because we grew it.

Me: That's great.

Thing 1: I told you the toothbrush would work.

Me (walking up to look at the tomato plant): Oh My God {DH}!! There really is a tomato on this plant! I can't believe it! {Thing 1} wasn't joking! Hahaha!

I did get that spinny twirly toothbrush. It was $7.99 and it seemed foolish not to try it. I don't know if this tomato came from one of the flowers that I just tapped with my fingers or if it was one that got the toothbrush treatment, but either way. We have a bonafide real tomato growing in our house. I now have several shriveled up flowers on both plants, shriveled up flowers that have not dropped off the plant. I feel like that is a good sign that more fruit is coming our way. I spent some time on Saturday pruning the yellowing branches away. And I have noticed quite a few fruit flies that I think came from the compost. The larvae were probably in there when I bought it. I am not sure whether the fruit flies are harmless or not. They haven't spread to other parts of the house and while there are many flies, they seem to like to just sit on the tomato plants. I don't quite know what to make of them. But so far I can find no issues with them.


Now the hard part comes, keeping the Things away from the growing tomato. I don't know how long it will take to grow and possibly one of the Things will touch it or tear it off before it is fully developed. I don't want that to happen. Most of the other flowers are out of reach. But this one is in prime toddler grabbing area. And they are VERY excited. Truth be told, so am I.


I did it!!! My little girls are making babies!!!

For the full tomato growing saga, check out the first post here and the second post here.

The post has been shared with Simple Lives Thursday and Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays

On Flowering Tomatoes and Daughters

My indoor gardening idea was a 'get tomatoes quick' scheme at best. I have invested about $100 so far, and I guess that you could say that I didn't buy a pair of shoes (or two) this summer to offset the costs, so I am not crying over the loss of $100. But still, $100 is nothing to sniff at and I really want some tomatoes for some return on investment.

Since I started the great indoor gardening project I have watched these plants quadruple in size, bend upward toward the sun and put out several flowers. The red fruited 'Abe Lincoln' has put out a couple dozen flowers so far, with only 7 or 8 actually growing big enough to open. The yellow fruited 'Yellow Oxheart' has also put out a couple dozen flowers too, but they have all stayed small and tight. I think that my little yellow dear may not be getting enough sun since it is further in the corner. I moved the rack to a sunnier patch to oblige the plant.

With all this fertility and flowering I can't help but think of these plants as being female. I like to refer to them as a couple of 'shes' and they remind me of the irregular young girl in the first year of getting her menstrual cycle. Their little plant bodies are struggling to make babies and only producing dying flowers. And since I have no daughters who will one day grow up and need my loving guidance as they become women, maybe I am acting out through these plants a great void in my heart to help a young girl grow up. Remember when Rudy Huxtable got her period on the Cosby Show? I always imagined having a daughter. And when her time came I would keep her out of school for the first day after and we would go have lunch somewhere fancy in midtown, get manicures and go shopping at Sak's to celebrate her crossing over into womanhood. Now all I have to fulfill those dreams is a couple of irregular tomato plants that can't quite make tomatoes.

An astute reader commented in the first post about my indoor gardening that perhaps the plants needed bees? I foolishly believed that I could just BE the BEE. I could tap the flowers and polinate them. I mean, have you SEEN a flower? The stamen sticks out and all these dusty pods float in the breeze just begging to knock the plant up. I had it all worked out in my head. Then the first little flowers opened and I realized the trouble. A tomato flower comes in two parts, the outer flower that looks like a regular flower and then this, rather surprising to me, inner flower that covers the stamen and all the pollen bits.

I looked at the flower and thought, 'Ok, what the hell do I do now?' Before I left on vacation I had 3-4 flowers that were open. I had planned on gently tapping them to pollinate them, but clearly I was going to have to be more...invasive. I pinched them, but I didn't see any pollen fall out. I tapped the flowers from the back. I didn't know what to expect. I left on vacation hoping to come home to little green knobs.

What did I come home to? 4 new flowers and a couple dead flowers on the floor. Boo. So I looked online and found this website on how to pollinate indoor tomatoes. This website recommends getting an electric toothbrush and gently massaging the nearby support stems. Apparently the frequency of the vibrations loosens the pollen in the inner flower helping it to fall down and pollinate. An electric toothbrush? For real? I am starting to feel like I have crossed the line with this project into 'ridiculous territory'. I don't want to spend one more dime, but on the other hand if I don't see it all the way through then my entite initial investment is down the drain. What a conundrum! I decided to gently massage my plants with my fingers. I am making sure to ever so carefully tap the support stems on which the flowers are. I am trying to imitate the movement that the toothbrush would provide. And I am sure that I have now completely lost it.

I guess in a couple days I will know if I have ruined another batch of flowers and I need to buy an electric toothbrush. But I must see this through to the end. After all, I am the only mommy that my little girls have got.

Now don't get me wrong, having boys is awesome. Awesomer than I could have ever imagined. And rather than helping them become women (obviously), I am teaching them what to expect from women and how to have proper inter-gender relationships. I feel that it is my responsibility even at their young age to teach them to develop a healthy marriage by building great external friendships. But we want what we want. I remember the day the ultrasound clinician told me that Thing 2 was a boy. I was laying flat on my back and I truly believed that if I adjusted my head properly my two fat tears might roll back into my tears ducts from where they'd sprung. Since then I have reconciled my feelings. My desire for a daughter does not reflect upon my love for my boys at all. One has nothing to do with the other. And I don't feel guilty at all about my want of a daughter. But a Thing 3 is not looking so likely. So until we hit the lottery or I sell a book idea, I think that I will focus my attention on my tomato plants.

Read the first post here: The Hanging Gardens of Washington Heights

Read the next post here: And Just Like That We Have A Tomato

This post is shared with Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays and Traditional Tuesdays and Real Food Wednesdays

The Hanging Gardens of Washington Heights

I have been talking about how to grow tomatoes indoors since last summer. As I have mentioned, I live in a 1000 square foot space in New York. Our apt faces East and so we have lots of light. But our outdoor space is shared and I cannot just go and plant tomato plants wherever I please. So I got the crazy notion to try indoor growing. The intention was to plant them in late April like the guy at the farmer’s market said I should. But things slipped through my fingers due to busy schedules and general laziness. So now, I proceed even though it was late May.Recently I purchased two Topsy Turvy indoor tomato planters, two heirloom tomato plants (one yellow oxheart and one Abe Lincoln) and 10 pounds of dirt from the lady at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. The dirt contained 6 months worth of compost she said. When we arrived home, Thing 1 about burst out of his clothes to get me to start in on planting them. And though we didn’t follow directions to the tee, my plants were quite large with flowers on them when the planter specifically warns not to do so, yet after a little jiggering and gentle pulling, our new friends were planted and upside down in no time.

But what to do, what to do? The planters were heavy, 5 or 6 pounds, and I needed to add more dirt making them closer to 10 pounds. Hanging them from my plaster ceiling now seemed like a bad bad bad idea. I thought, ‘What about a couple of two by fours?’ We could affix the two by fours to the ceiling with anchors and then screw the planters into the wood. DH thought that was a marginally better idea than screwing them into the ceiling, but he still didn’t declare it a solution. Finally he got a great idea (he usually does). He went to Home Depot and bought one of those metal industrial kitchen shelving racks. He bought wheels so that we could move the rack around for optimal sunlight, and out of the living room altogether when we have company.

So now I have my two little beauties hung. But has this been cost effective? Not so much. The planters, the plants and the dirt cost almost $40. The rack and the wheels cost another $80. Yipes! If like the box says that the average tomato plant can produce 30 pounds of tomatoes a year, then my 60 pounds of tomatoes will cost me $2 per pound. That’s cheap for heirloom tomatoes, but far from free. And that is only if I can get them to produce. So far I have had three flowers fall off from the stress of being planted. Now that they are cozy and getting sun every day I am seeing new shoots. That is a good sign.

The first step in getting more familiar with what one eats is to start shopping at a farmer’s market. Get to know what is being grown in your area. From there you can join a CSA, find local meats and other various local foods. But the next logical thing one does is to grow one’s own food. If I lived in a house on even a quarter of an acre I would likely have some kind of a garden. And much to the chagrin of my neighbors I might even try to keep chickens. But that is not an option for me right now. I love my home, I love my neighbors and I especially love my commute. And when you consider that it is *only* 45 minutes each way, then you start to see why moving even further outside the city creates its own challenges. My hanging garden is one way that I am trying to grow my own food and doing it with what I have, fresh air and sunshine.

My rack is big enough to add at least two more Topsy Turvy planters. And thus far the plants themselves have started to grow up, so I think they won’t be as big as I first thought. Which means I can add peppers or cucumbers or eggplant next year if things go well. I would like to try and add strawberries this year if it is possible. I am not sure if they do well indoors. This is an exciting adventure. My goal is to grow enough fresh tomatoes to have enough to sustain us throughout the winter. Perhaps, since they will be inside in the heat, my plants will continue to produce after the first frost? I don’t know. I wonder will they produce at all? We will have to take this one day at a time.