Summer packed tight in a tomato
Only eight in the morning and already it's so hot in the high tunnel that sweat starts dripping down my legs, my shirt is wet, and little sweat bees start circling around me. My fingers turn green, then black as I prune the bottom branches and dead leaves of the tomato plants.
Tomatoes are unruly plants. Left alone they become a tangled mess of shoots–falling and spreading on the ground, hiding the fruit under the foliage. Under that rich canopy lays a whole community of bugs, toads, spiders, and fungal diseases. Reach in through the green to pick that pretty red globe and you just might stick your hand into squishy rotten tomato.
Sometimes I leave the plants that pop up all over the farm for the wildlife to feast on. But for my harvest I like trained tomatoes–military style, in straight rows–growing upward in their confined trellis. I expect cleanliness; no dead leaves on the bottom and ample air flow.
The green smell of the plants is strong, not good, not bad, just tomatoey. I tuck the shoots into their string cage; being careful not to break off the hard, heavy, green tomatoes. Little yellow blossoms dance with the plants as I work–promising tart, sweet, and salty summer memories.
It will be worth it.
