Growing Things

I used to hate gardening, but I now find myself missing the brand-new planting beds I helped build at my parent’s house a few weeks ago. I get even more nostalgic over the big vegetable garden we had when I was a kid. So out on the patio of my cozy little apartment I now have pots of plants. It started last summer with pansies and snap dragons, a camellia and a couple other flowers whose names are not forgotten. But now that spring has come, so have the veggies. A couple of different tomato plants, sweet 100s and a general-variety tomato for pots are happily transforming little yellow flowers into cute little tomatoes. A couple of zucchini are soon going to take over the pot they share with some snap dragons. The lettuce plants are being babied indoors on the widow sill, their tiny delicate leaves bringing out a previously dormant maternal instinct of protection.
One of the tomatoes is starting to turn red, its one of the most exciting things of my life. I love tomatoes and generally feel that if a day passes without eating one in some form, then that day is wasted. But to eat one from my own patio, oh my gosh, it is going to be out of this world! This beats the organic tomatoes bought from the co-op any day. Hopefully the waiting will make them taste that much better. Its cliché, but my mouth is watering just thinking about it, and my stomach is growling too.
(Here is one of my enthusiastic zucchini plants, like I said, they are taking over their pot!)

While we are waiting for nature to do her work, I thought I’d share some facts about tomatoes. During a recent visit to the Huntington gardens, I discovered the recommendations of a man named Gerard on the virtues of plants. With some scrounging around the UC library system a copy of “Gerard’s Herball” was found and acquired. Gerard’s commentary on the “virtues” of plants tends to veer in the direction of how they affect the humors of the body and there has even been a mention of a “cold braine” once or twice, though I’m not sure what that means. This is what John Gerard, writing around 1597, had to say about the virtues of “apples of love,” the more poetic name of our beloved tomatoes;
“In Spaine and those hot Regions they use to eate the Apples prepared and boiled with pepper, salt, and oyle: but they yield very little nourishment to the body, and the same naught and corrupt.
“Likewise they doe eate the Apples with oile, vinegre and pepper mixed together for sauce to their meat, even as we in these cold countries doe Mustard.”
It seems like the English Elizabethan palate was not quite ready for tomatoes. Fortunately they gave grown in popularity and we now know the truth about tomatoes. They are fruits rather than vegetables, though apparently vegetable is just a culinary term and not a scientific one. They are rich in vitamins A, C and in fiber. Even better, lycopene an antioxidant which makes tomatoes red, may prevent cancer.
It is indeed interesting how our vision changes. The tomato has gone from yielding “very little nourishment” to providing lots of vitamins and being a great source of lycopene. Though really, I think that the nutrition is just a bonus to this fruit that acts like a vegetable. Those silly little fruits growing on a delicate vine yield so much taste, a little sweet and a little acidity, that they would be worth eating if they had the health benefits of a potato chip. I like mine in a salad or even better, I eat them plain. I know a lot of people put salt on them, but I like a bit of fresh ground black pepper. If I have cherry tomatoes around, which I usually do since they are my favorites, I’ll grab a few and pop them in my mouth, one at a time, like candy.
I’ve always loved tomatoes and now I love to grow them. I don’t begrudge the dirt under my fingernails though I do resent the occasional weed that pops up. Like a kid waiting for Christmas, I’m waiting for my tomatoes to ripen along with the zucchini and lettuce, and it’ll be better than any present, don’t you think?