Trouble with Tomatoes

Back in my previous life in Georgia, I was a pretty decent gardener. Corn, cabbages, squash, zucchini, all manner of "greens," lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, okra, broccoli, and too many snow peas all flourished until the heat and stink bugs of July became too much. I canned, froze, and pickled all summer, and with the aid of cold frames, we had fresh lettuce and "greens" throughout the winter. About the only vegetables we bought were onions and garlic. It was wonderful to wander out to the garden on a hot afternoon and eat warm cherry tomatoes off the vine!

First Cherry Tomato of the Season

In the nearly 30 years I have been back in south Florida, I have yet to grow a decent tomato. It can be done. Neighbors across the street do it. They're "real" tomatoes, red, juicy and flavorful, because I've tasted them. (I have nice neighbors who share). I've never tried very hard, which might be one reason for my lack of success!

Here, the sand we so wistfully call "soil" does not retain water. You can be flooded on Monday and parched by Thursday, especially if it gets windy, and here practically on the Gulf, it is windy a lot. In their article "Unique Challenges for Florida Growers in Tomato and Pepper Production" G. McAvoy and M. Ozores -Hampton called Florida soil in general "merely a media (sic) to hold plants...". Heavy rainfall and high temperatures also mean that our sand doesn't retain nutrients either. In the same article the authors state that in some Florida soils, "there is nothing to bind minerals to what are basically miniature glass beads." Add root-knot nematodes to the mix, and it's obvious that you can't simply dig up a plot in the back yard and go to town.

Raised beds with lots of organic material and some bags of planting soil are the way to go, but somehow I haven't found the time. Hmmm... in 30 years? I've had minimal success growing tomatoes in pots, but this year I decided to try again. I bought good potting soil and composted manure, and planted my bought tomato starts in large pots.

I must have overdone the manure, because the plants almost died at first, but they recovered and bloomed. I was watching one large tomato swell and ripen - it was beginning to glow with promise, especially on one side. Then something - the grackles are my main suspects - pecked/ate a big hole in one side! Muttering and swearing, I  picked it and cut the offending half off.

The "Good" Side

I used the "good" side in a sauce I made - mainly to add bulk and moisture, because in its unripened state, there wasn't much flavor to be had. Actually, it had about as much flavor as many tomatoes I have bought from supermarkets over the years. 

My truly sad-looking cherry tomato plant pushed out a few berries on a languishing stem. I brought this plant into the screened patio to protect it from birds. As for the big flavor test - They were red inside - that's something, and they sort of tasted like a tomato should, but there was no explosion of flavor in the mouth. They also had tough skins. I read that that can be a reaction to too much sun, so I've moved the pot to a shadier spot back out in the yard. I'm hoping new growth will flower and set fruit before it gets too hot. The plant that produced the first tomato produced some small new fruits, so I brought it into the patio as soon as I noticed any color. Now it is a matter of waiting to see what happens.

Surviving Branch

Thirty odd years ago we were following a huge trailer loaded with green tomatoes in Homestead, Florida. They were piled so high that a bunch rolled off every time the truck hit a dip or hump in the road.  A lot of them bounced! That is no lie. After they'd been exposed to ethylene they might have turned reddish, but they never would have developed the characteristic flavor of a vine-ripened tomato. I doubt that anything has changed flavor-wise in supermarket tomatoes since then.

But there's hope, at least for the home gardener. In developing tomatoes that would produce heavy yields, ripen uniformly, ship well, and appeal to buyers, genes responsible for the tomato's distinctive flavor simply were bred out of the mix. 

Dr. Harry J. Klee, in the Horticultural Sciences Department at the University of Florida, and his colleagues here subjected hundreds of tomato varieties to taste panels to select for best flavor and some keeping ability. The researchers identified the minor chemical compounds responsible for the flavor, and colleagues in China sequenced complete genomes of nearly 400 varieties. If you send a $10 donation for the research, Dr. Klee will send you seeds of 3 varieties - "Garden Treasure," "Garden Gem," and "W. Hybrid." 

My summary is a vast oversimplification, but you can read about it all on Harry's Tasty Tomato Page.

Dr. Klee's lab also is doing some work on melons, lettuce and strawberries - sure would be nice to have strawberries that don't taste like styrofoam! 

Part of my disappointing experiences growing tomatoes in containers in south Florida may be that instead of starting specific varieties from seeds, like I did in Georgia, and like my generous neighbors, I have bought plants from garden centers. They may not have been best-suited for this climate, and it is possible that they suffer from the same genetic flaws as their relatives in the supermarkets. I'm going to send my $10 to Dr. Klee, and wait until it cools off enough to plant - sometime in August or September, I hope. And maybe by then I will have made a few raised beds. It's about time.

Overboard in the Gulf of Mexico!

Having the Gulf of Mexico practically in my backyard is wonderful -except during hurricane season.  Part of it was in my backyard during Hurricane Irma. (Since our house is only about 7 feet above sea level, we left for higher ground). The hurricane hit Sunday, and when we returned on Tuesday, we saw the debris line  about 5 feet from the patio, 7-10 feet away from the house proper, so we were very lucky. People farther down the street and closer to open water had to rip out drywall and discard furniture and appliances. Down and across the canal a home was so damaged by the surge that it had to be demolished.

 I recently had another close encounter of the wrong kind with the Gulf. With the exception of 20 land-locked years in the middle of my life, I have messed around with boats from the time I was 9 or 10, both at home and with Girl Scouts. I never have fallen off a boat, and never have capsized one accidentally. (It's fun  capsizing canoes on purpose, and it takes more work than you might expect).
But there's always a first time.

We'd had a good sail in gorgeous weather out to the sea buoy, about 2 nautical miles from Marco Island, and then turned north, sailing outside Keewaydin Island toward Naples. On the way back the wind got a little frisky for our taste, so we dropped the sail. Unfortunately it didn't come down all the way. Being very careful about hanging on, I went to the bow and unjammed the sail. Then I backed back into the cockpit, but thinking the danger was over, somehow I just stepped overboard instead of back into the boat.

Falling backwards and then plop! into the water was an  unreal sensation. It felt longer than the  second it took. A gentle, but cold landing. Gulf water averages 66 degrees in early February, not cold for people up north, but no self-respecting  SW-Floridian of my generation gets into the water before it hits 80 degrees, usually in March. Apparently there is something called "Cold Response Shock," which causes one to gasp involuntarily when hitting cold water. I don't know if that is what happened to me, but I definitely came up choking.

I can't say what was going through my mind. I wasn't exactly frightened, but I was acutely aware that I was in the water, that my shoes and heavy-duty work pants were making it hard to stay afloat, and that I was suddenly, inexplicably tired, even though I am a fairly decent swimmer.

I was coughing pretty vigorously while trying not to breathe in more water. I do remember thinking, absurdly, how beautiful the water splashing against the transom was. I didn't think to kick off my shoes. Actually, I doubt that I was thinking at all.

 I had learned in safe boating courses from the Power Squadron that most people who fall overboard make it back to the boat, but that many still drown because they can't get back into the boat, and succumb to hypothermia or exhaustion. That mush have been  in the back of my mind.

But really, all that I remember  was the realization that I was not in a good place, had to get back into the boat, had to do it soon, and had to do it on the first go-round, because my energy was flagging so rapidly.  My husband had thrown me a seat cushion, and the flotation was comforting and helpful.

Our boat has a small step on the rudder and then another one on the transom, to help get back on. The   steps were a little high for me, but with my husband's help I managed first the one  and then the other, and then with his pulling and my pushing I got over the coaming, and sort of "walked" on my elbows along the seat to get the rest of the way in.

I was exhausted, and it took a long time for my heart to stop thumping, but there was still work to do before we could continue, so I did my part and then changed into a dry flannel shirt. Somewhere along the line I whacked my big toe, so had a technicolor foot for about a week - a small price to pay.

According to the Boat US Foundation, 76% of boating fatalities occur on clear days with calm seas. I wasn't a fatality, but otherwise the accident fit the mold perfectly. I'm still not quite sure what happened, just that I thought I was safe, and then the next thing I knew I was in the water. We  don't drink while boating,  I have more upper-body strength than a lot of women my age, and we're both in decent shape - all of which certainly helped my chances.

So now we are enforcing the rule that anybody who has to go forward or out on deck puts on a PFD.  I am looking for one that will not be bulky or too hot in summer, and that I can buckle and unbuckle with arthritic hands. So far the cheap red vests that we've always carried have turned out to be the most comfortable.

Another thing. I'm glad that George, the 700-1000 pound great white shark that was located in the 10,000 islands not so far south of us around the same time wasn't there, or wasn't hungry!