So true! We ought to refuse the bred-for-shipping varieties that our home
grown MBAs have given us. Maybe if everyone rejected the crap served in
restaurants we could reverse the trend. But there is hope, as in
http://www.tomatofest.com/home.html and many others--for the investment of
some time and some earth.

Jay Knepper

"Swingman" wrote in message
...
"Bob Schmall" wrote in message

Got any wood-frame (Obww) farmer's tomato stands in your area? We're
just
wrapping up the second coldest summer on record, and I finally, today,
the
First of September, found ripe tomatoes at the local stand. Sheesh.

Global warming, eh?

We do have an abundance of farmer's produce markets and stands down here
in
Texas, but most of the tomatoes are still of the hybrid variety that are
"engineered" more for shelf life than taste. I've been growing my own for
a
while, on the front porch in an "earth box", but the varieties available
as
seedlings are the same, basically tasteless, hybrids that you get at the
markets.

Taste being one of the last things to go, and wanting to take full
advantage
of that fact, it is apparent that if I want to taste a real tomato again,
like the one's we had as kids on the farm, I am going to have to go to
extraordinary measures to do so. Next year I want to plant some old
heirloom
seeds, in a flat like we used to do, then transplant to the "earth box",
and
see if that doesn't improve things.

I've got a shaker with a combination of salt and pepper in it out in the
shop (Obww), and always keep a couple of tomatoes in the shop fridge ...
keeps your hand steady for those taper jig cuts.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 7/10/04