Did you know that tomatoes were the only fruit Roman emperors permitted to be sold and eaten during gladiatorial battles at the Colosseum? The colour of the fruit symbolised the warriors’ blood, and the struggle of the tomato vine itself represented the determination of the Roman people to rise up against the savages and bear fruit to a civilised new world.
Actually, I completely made that up. In much the same way as I tried to win an argument against fiance last night by ‘reading’ from a Wikipedia article which attested to the ‘fact’ that John Candy died during the making of Cool Runnings and that the two films listed in his filmography as being released after Cool Runnings were actually made before Cool Runnings, so I was right. I don’t really know anything about tomatoes at all, other than the following, actual, facts:
- Tomatoes grow in the country
- I live in the country now
- I like tomatoes
- I like relish
- I should grow some tomatoes and make some relish
- I should grow heirloom tomatoes because I wrote about them in my book and they are hipster. And even though I am a reformed hipster, I never actually got to eat an heirloom tomato because the ones I bought ended up sitting in the backyard for a week after a big night out and they turned into heirloom tomato paste
Hence and soforth begins, The Heirloom Tomato Project™ – a gardening adventure for children in which I grow heirloom tomatoes and turn them into relish.
Week one began two weeks ago, so now I am now at the end of week two. Here are photos of the results:
The Heirloom Tomato Project: Week One
The Heirloom Tomato Project: Week Two
The results will get more interesting as the tomatoes grow and I have more to write about. For now, the most interesting thing to happen in the garden has been a heated debate about whether rocket (the salad herby, better-than-lettuce plant thing) would grow better if I continually played it Rock It by Little Red, or Rocket, by Def Leppard on Sunday afternoons for two hours. The debate was a lively and interesting one involving one-armed air drumming and some claps from a crowd of bemused local farmers over the back fence. It was eventually decided, by a show of one arms, that up until about 1994 (around the same time the sun dried tomato and sushi were invented), rocket did not exist, so rocket wouldn’t know who Def Leppard was, and Little Red was therefore best choice.
That being settled, what music should I play my tomatoes? The two varieties I’ve planted are called Grosse Lisse and Rouge De Marmande, but, as a published, if not totally reformed, hipster, I have refused to entertain my plants with anything by Christina Aguilera, so that obviously rules out the Moulin Rouge inspired Lady Marmalade. Any other ideas?
