I opened the pantry door, took a thrifted basket off the shelf, and slipped out into the sultry morning air, thick with the scent of green growing things. Slipping my feet into garden clogs, I hurried out to my garden where two red tomatoes waited for me. At least, I hoped they were there. They hung low on the vine, and I nearly picked them last evening lest some animal should come in the night and eat them. Did I dare leave them on the vine just a little more while we slept?
It was June 18, and I had NEVER had tomatoes ripen this early before, but every year I learn new tricks. Sometimes these little tricks take a little extra work which makes all the difference. This year early tomatoes were my hopeful project.
Sometime later I returned to the house, my basket loaded with three cucumbers, six or seven potatoes, a head of iceberg lettuce, a pepper, several sprigs of parsley, and the two red tomatoes I had gone to bed worrying about. They still hung low on the vine, bright ruby orbs, and I gently tugged them from the vine and settled them in the basket where they belonged.
One day last summer as I strolled around my mom’s garden, I noted with envy that she had red tomatoes hanging on some of her plants many days before mine took on the slightest blush. “Early Girl,” she said when I asked her what kind they were. I kept mental note.
During the long winter months, I browse seed catalogs for fun. There is nothing much more stimulating than long lists of plant descriptions and beautiful vegetable portraits pored over while curled up on a couch, the garden lying fallow under a heap of snow. This year I paid careful attention to the “days to maturity” notes beside the various tomato plants. Sure enough, Early Girl won the races at fifty-seven days while other slicers staggered in at eighty-five days.
Aha, I thought. I will succession plant tomatoes and see if I can get a head start on the season. I placed an order for a packet of Early Girl tomatoes along with my other selections.
In early March, I planted four Early Girl tomato seeds in a plastic cup of potting mix and put them under ordinary LED shop lights extended from a rack in our dining room. I planned to plant those seedlings out in a garden bed mid-April, a good three weeks or more before our last frost date.
The seeds germinated promptly and stretched their way rapidly toward the shop lights suspended above them. They grew a set of real leaves, and I potted them into four-inch pots where they grew some more.
No light grows like the sunshine though, and I soon moved the little tomato seedlings outdoors during the day, usually slipping them under a clear plastic tote which provided extra warmth and protection from brisk winds, and bringing them back indoors when the temperature dropped at night. They grew stout, stocky, and happy.
April arrived, and with it a highly unwelcome cold front. One awful night, temperatures plummeted to a miserable 21°F (-6°C) degrees, and I wondered about the wisdom of setting out these beautiful tomato seedlings mid-April as I had planned. Nonetheless, I prepared the planting site by stretching black plastic across the bed and weighting it down with stones. Surely bright sunshine on dark plastic would warm things up a few degrees.
Finally, April 19, weeks before the soil had properly warmed and the last frost date had arrived, I removed the plastic, pulled aside layers of rotting leaves, chicken litter, and hay, and tucked those four Early Girl seedlings into the muddy soil.
I feared that the ground temperatures would be too much of a shock to them, but the plants never wavered. I watched the weather closely and covered them up with an old sheet or frost cloth, sometimes both, on nights when frost threatened.
May came, and with it one more frost, then warmer days and rain showers. Those tomatoes took off and grew lush and full. I wrangled the vines into order, trellising them with the Florida weave between three T-stakes. Little yellow flowers burst out and dropped, leaving tiny green baby tomatoes that slowly swelled beneath the lush green leaves. One morning I found two or three unripe tomatoes lying on the ground as if something had picked them, taken a tiny bite, and discarded it with disgust. Discouragement threatened, but there were other little tomatoes hanging hopefully on the branches. I held that hope loosely, for animals are unpredictable.
Just after confidently informing someone that “it will be weeks yet before tomatoes,” I headed to the garden and, behold, two tomatoes were sporting a light pink blush. They were indeed ahead of the game. I patiently waited while the blush slowly deepened into a bright red. It was not weeks, only days before tomatoes.
Now here I was, carrying a basketful of produce in from the garden with two red tomatoes nestled in beside the lettuce, and it was only June 18. I marveled over their beauty and set them carefully on the kitchen counter to reach the perfect stage of juicy ripeness no grocery store can rival.
More ripe tomatoes quickly followed, and we indulged in daily tomato sandwiches, and platefuls of tomato slices seasoned with salt and pepper. One morning a month into the tomato season when the main crop was only beginning to trickle in, I looked down at my breakfast plate of two poached eggs on buttered toast, juicy ripe Early Girl tomato slices sprinkled with seasoned salt, and a garnish of basil. I thought of the work, worry, and patience that had gone into the tending of these early tomatoes. I ate my breakfast and decided they were very worth the trouble.
