No Inflation, huh?

Were those plants legal, Abdul?

I want that pipe.

You would, wouldn't you?!

Pam wrote:

but our large grocery chains here actually spray all the organic produce that comes in to their warehouses, because they say that shoppers refuse to buy anything that has a fruit fly hovering over it. So even if the grower is diligently producing organic (and my understanding is that some of them actually are - I sit on a forum for the local sustainability of farming) - the supermarkets destroy it.

If they don't disclose that, and are charging full organic prices (which I presume builds in the higher spoilage factor), that's dishonest. People buy organic because they don't want those pesticides (and steroids, hormones, etc.). My guess is that any store here known to do that would be fined.

Anyhow, this thread inspired me and I spent the day pulling weeds and wheelbarrowing manure to my garden boxes. Then I bought some Walmart plants (gee, I should join Twitter and tweet this fascinating stuff). No heirlooms, but I bought a Big Boy, a Better Boy, an Early Girl and a Jet Star. I've never been able to taste a difference between them, but I buy the variety each year anyhow.

You probably will never be able to taste the difference between them, LD. The reason being that they all taste like cardboard.

If you could find just one tomato of the variety that we grew up eating, you'd understand what we mean.

BTW, this is not about you or me or any of the rest here, it's about how some things are just not as good as they once were. They might fight off disease better, they may have a long shelf life, and they might even taste all right to someone who doesn't know the difference, but the sad fact is that they just aren't anywhere near as good as they used to be. I'm in total agreement with most change. I'd hate to go back to the days with no computers, for instance, but sometimes change is not good, and the new tomatoes are a great example of that.

I think change, just for the sake of saying you've changed, is sometimes silly. If change makes things better, fine, but when the change makes things worse, then there's no sense in it.

I think maybe the big difference in the newer tomatoes is the lower
acid content. That sharp bite was the sign of a good tomato to me.

Today
we went to the local Farmeers Market, mainly to get the herbs my wife
wanted. While she was doing her thing, I went off to look for 'maters.
There were mostly the new hybrids on display. What I had the best
luck with in the past was a variety called Rutgers, and was known as
"the farmers tomato" back in the day. The only problem was that they
were not nematode resistant and of course that's what got indroduced
into my soil.

At one time I knew the name of the new variety - made from the Rutgers stock, but was VFN resistant. Vermi... something, Fusarian wilt and Nematode.
Seems it was Supersonic, but I'm not sure. I did pick up some Sweet
100's which is a very tasty cherry tomato, and a couple of Romas -
which taste more like the old Heirlooms than most anything else I have
tried. It's just that pear shape thats make them difficult to fit
neatly on a sandwich... LOL

When you have time, Brew, would you please repeat that in English.
Acidic soil produces the best tomatoes. Try those from central Indiana around Elwood or Tipton and those grown near Marietta, Ohio.

Dick, I meant the acid in the tomatoes themselves, but that probably
has a lot to do with the scidity of the soil. The "cardboard" flavored
ones lack taste because of the low acid content.

So can acid be added to garden soil to make the tomatoes taste better? A box of something from Walmart?

At any rate, I got my cardboard tomatoes planted. I also devoted one box to corn. Most years it doesn't turn out, even though I do the same thing as the years it does turn out. Here's last year's crop.

You'll find everything you need to know here:

http://www.heirloomtomatoplants.com/Organic_Heirloom_%20Tomato_Plants%20yum.htm

LCc, the one thing you can count on is that anything you grow will taste 1000 times better than whatever you bought at a store. Carboard or not, it will be homegrown and better tasting cardboard. And that corn is already looking good.

When the ears begin to ripen, and there is a large tassle of cornsilk on the top of each one, please try and refrain from drying, rolling it, and smoking it. I know it will be tempting, but it won't be something you need to do.

From that site:

<< the finest tasting tomatoes come from plants grown in rich, healthy well-amended soil. The taste of a tomato, (or any crop) grown in poor soil can be flat and bland compared to the big grand tomatoey taste of the same variety grown right next door in well-tended soil, teeming with biological activity. Organic soil amendments are the key. Add compost every year. >>

I actually do this. I put grass clippings on it for compost and add manure every other year. I haven't added anything specifically for acidity, though.

The site recommends buying heirlooms. Eh, I'm not organized enough to mail off for plants. I buy them spur of the moment, when the weather's good and when I feel like planting them.

E. Don Harpe wrote:

When the ears begin to ripen, and there is a large tassle of cornsilk on the top of each one, please try and refrain from drying, rolling it, and smoking it. I know it will be tempting, but it won't be something you need to do.

LOL. Actually, the problem I usually have with corn is that it rots or bugs eat it. Diazinon fixes the bugs, but I haven't figured out the rot yet.

Smoking the tassels? Never thought of that...

Then you've probably never tried smoking rabbit tobacco, catawba pods, grape vine, or any one of a dozen other things that country boys have smoked for generations.

During WWII they planted a lot of hemp in some places around the south, and Robertson County was one of them. The plant was used to make rope and for other things for the military, but the leaves were used for quite another purpose.

After the war the government came in and destroyed all they could find, and they thought they got it all, but plants will find a way to grow if they can, and so it did.

Not that anyone ever dried and smoked it of course, at least not any country boys that I ever knew.

I used to help my brother graft hundreds of tomato plants when he was a grower. This page explains why and how:

http://alumni.cse.ucsc.edu/~agu/framing/grafting.html

Most corn varieties take around 65 days to mature, and our season is 40 days, if we are lucky. So the immature plants get yanked from the garden and given to the cows. They love the stalks!

Being a child of the 60's, I notice no one has mentioined smoking banana peels. It was most unsatisfactory.

LC, It looks like a good bunch of corn plants you got last year.

I do my tomatoes in containers. The blight that afflicts tomato plants here comes with the rain, so I need to be able to move them under an eave or cover of some sort. We get a short season for them, but they are worth the effort.

Shelagh, I never heard of doing that to tomatoes, I will have to check out the link!

That is a very interesting article, Shelagh. Sounds like a lot of work, but it may well be worth it. I use the plastic bag trick on the little plants to protect them at times, and it seems to work quite well until they get really large. I have even used visqueen sheets on larger plants.

I once tried to do some grafting on an old apple tree, but did not have much luck with it.

What an interesting thread! I can't wait to get my garden started. I have to have my own tomatoes every year and grow them in pots on my deck. I like having the control of moving them in case we get too much rain. And the wild animals will eat them if they're grown in the open. But I just might try growing some in the acidic soil that I have to see the difference.

Zada, love the new picture by the way!

Helen, the 'new' picture was taken several years ago, but is much the same as I look now. It was at a 'gathering of cousins' in Georgia. One wise acre told a joke, and another caught me in mid guffaw!

I spent some of my happiest times at my grandparents' farm. My brothers and I learned to put a salt shaker in a back pocket, so when we reached the tomatoes, we could pick one and eat it right off the vine.

Did you know that if you nuke an ear of corn w/o husking it, that the silks all slide off so easily you never have to worry about getting one in your teeth?

My mom taught me how delicious a vegetable sandwich could be in the spring: whole grain bread, a little mayo, sliced beefsteak tomato, thin slices of onion and cucumber; what a treat.

Vegetable dinners are even better. Tomatoes, onions, corn-on-the-cob and black-eyed peas - who needs meat?

Ann

Ann, I love your new picture, too. It's like Don inspired everyone to change their avatar at the same time after viewing that scary one of him.

You've made me hungry for a tomato, onion and cuke sandwich!

Scary one of ME!!!!!

Don, are you surprised?