The First Tomato (Almost!)
We don't just sell books, we have a garden out back with some tomatoes, though we don't sell to the public, nor do we have a retail outlet.. It is too late to show you the designated first tomato of the spring. We were too slow. And we have the squirrels to blame. Or as they say on the radio reports, "the alleged perpetrator", or because of liability they have switched to "person of interest". But since in this case they belong to the mammalian family rondentia (from the Latin gnawers), we would have to say "rodent of interest".
If it were a criminal case, we do not have the actual evidence at hand. Only the circumstantial evidence of a gnawed and irregular red tomato stump that still adheres to the stem. The perpetrator got underneath and gnawed from the bottom up, till the felon had eaten his or her fill.
We know that the squirrels are smart enough to know that the red ones make the best eating, because the green ones are left behind. And in past years, we have to actually harvest the tomatoes while they are still green or pink and store them on a window sill to ripen fully.
As far as culpability, we have seen the squirrels in the trees eating the tomatoes, gripping the fruit in their tiny claw-like paws, they are voracious beasts, not to be trusted. And we are imagining some way of protecting the tomato fruit (it is technically a fruit not a vegetable) by wrapping it in some kind of protective layer of cloth or metal. The Japanese grow watermelons inside of containers to make them cube-shaped for their unusual appearance and neat stacking. We are tempted to try a similar technique, but in the Central Texas summer weather, that might make for a batch of semi-stewed tomatoes and the summer heat hits its stride in the afternoon.
Here is one of the formerly green ones, it has been sitting indoors on a window sill for a week or so, and it is just about ready for consumption. We have provided a link to our on-line store home page at My-lynx Associates.com if you choose to click on the tomato:
If it were a criminal case, we do not have the actual evidence at hand. Only the circumstantial evidence of a gnawed and irregular red tomato stump that still adheres to the stem. The perpetrator got underneath and gnawed from the bottom up, till the felon had eaten his or her fill.
We know that the squirrels are smart enough to know that the red ones make the best eating, because the green ones are left behind. And in past years, we have to actually harvest the tomatoes while they are still green or pink and store them on a window sill to ripen fully.
As far as culpability, we have seen the squirrels in the trees eating the tomatoes, gripping the fruit in their tiny claw-like paws, they are voracious beasts, not to be trusted. And we are imagining some way of protecting the tomato fruit (it is technically a fruit not a vegetable) by wrapping it in some kind of protective layer of cloth or metal. The Japanese grow watermelons inside of containers to make them cube-shaped for their unusual appearance and neat stacking. We are tempted to try a similar technique, but in the Central Texas summer weather, that might make for a batch of semi-stewed tomatoes and the summer heat hits its stride in the afternoon.
Here is one of the formerly green ones, it has been sitting indoors on a window sill for a week or so, and it is just about ready for consumption. We have provided a link to our on-line store home page at My-lynx Associates.com if you choose to click on the tomato:
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