A new record.
Our garden has set a new re
cord.
The first ripe tomato arrived
just ahead of the first day of sum
mer. Appropriate, huh? And. it
bested our former record of early
July by a good two weeks.
Actually, the tomato was a
on-the greenish side. A day
or two spent hanging around the
bananas in the kitchen-counter
fruit basket coaxed it to a lovely
ripe color and more fully develop
ed that classic home-grown toma
to flavor. Yes, it was quite tasty.
This early-ripe-tpmato record is
attributable to various reasons,
most of them relating little to the
grower.
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Concrete Ave., Leola, PA 17540 Box 56 RRI, Atglen, Pa 1
717-656-4878 FAX 656-4682 610-593-2981
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| I 1
Seller Hydraulics |
440 Concrete Avenue • concrete AVenue —
Leola, Pennsylvania 17540 n te23 I
East ; West
Phone (717) 656-4070 \
Fax (717) 650-4002 I
35
o Beiler Hydraulics former location
a Beco Power Equipment
(Presaure waahera ft accessories)
• New 20,000 Sq. Ft. Facility
' New Modernized Shop fIV
The seeds of this tomato, called
“Enchantment,” arrived here mid
summer of last year, sent by a
kindly reader who apparently
shares a love of tomatoes. (Many
thanks!)'lt’s a plum-type, but
grows slightly larger in size than
the classic Italian plum variety of
ten grown for simmering into
thick, rich tomato paste.
Source of the seeds is a Maine
company called Pinetrec Garden
Seeds, whose catalog followed
sometime later. It’s a homey,
readable, catalog, rilled with des
criptions that sound more like a
conversation between two die
hard gardeners than a sales publi
cation. An order for some varieties
of seeds I’d never seen anywhere
Beiler Hydraulics
♦ Improved Service
Larger Inventories
• Better Pricing
else along with some standard
favorites went back in the mail
soon afterward.
By mid-April, the largest toma
to seedlings were ready to move
outside in our early, warm spring.
Since frosts a month later are not
unusual here, we rolled out this
season’s second experiment.
Wall-O-Water insulating devices
have been around for several
years, but these were the first for
our garden.
“No way," 1 thought the day I
lugged out the double-walled plas
tic devices fashioned into tubular
cells in which water is poured and
began setting them up. A dozen
gallons of water later two gal
lons per trip back to the basement
four of the aqua-colored, tee
pee-shaped, mini-greenhouses
stood erect over black plastic
mulch. Six-inch-high tomato
stalks snuggled down inside each
of the water-filled structures.
“What are those?” was the
question asked by everyone who
saw or passed by die garden, as
the Wall-O-Waters became an in
stant conversation starter. At least
once each day. I’d mosey back to
the garden and poke a hand down
into one of the plastic forms, fas
cinated at how much warmer the
atmosphere was inside the two
feet-high, water-filled shelters.
That lasted a couple of weeks,
until the tomato stalks suddenly
began poking thick stems out the
tops. Another week, and they were
beginning to look like jungle
growth. How was I ever going to
extricate the plastic covers from
the tomato plants rapidly strang :
ling them?
One sunny morning in mid-
May, with infant, green tomatoes
already dotting the stalks inside
the pastic, it was apparent these
things had to go before the baby
fruits stewed. Squeezing the tubu
lar cells between my hand, starting
at the bottom, proved the best way
to work the water out the open
tops.
The bell pepper experiment was
another story. One pepper plant
grown inside a fifth insulated shel
ter mushroomed in size and fol
iage, but set fruit very slowly.
Meanwhile, the other unprotected
ones, two-thirds the size, have
been giving us good-sized, deli
cious peppers for a couple of
weeks.
Until I got the hang of the tech- Go figure.
Nloo-00-ing for a milk shake?
Southern Living editors found
these terrific flavors when visiting
ice cream shops in St Louis: “All
Shook Up” pairs peanut butter
cookies and banana—Elvis’s
favorite cnack—with vanilla ice
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July t, IMS-B5
nique. the sun-warmed water not
only cascaded down onto the
plants, but aM over my arms,
shoes, jeans and knees. When only
a few inches of water remained in
the bottoiti of each cell, the whole
thing could be yanked off the plant
and hung on the washlines to dry
out for storage.
And, baby tomatoes ripened in
record time.
cream; “Cardinal Sin” marries
sour red cherries with fudge sauce
and vanilla ice cream; while “Fox
treat” is a quartet of raspberries,
fudge sauce, vanilla ice cream and
macadamia nuts.
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