Big storms, big tomatoes

A year and a half ago I worked on an organic date farm in the California desert during February and March. I worked there just under two months, but we had more rainy days there, in the DESERT, than we have had here the past two months. I've been thinking about all those rainy desert days, whilst watching the skies the past few months that have brought so little rain--until now.

Big steel clouds and a cyclone-style wind overtook the mid-afternoon yesterday and dumped a hell of a lot of rain. I was out in the field, weeding our salad mix and watching the storm move closer to us from the northwest. The increasingly cool breeze was sooo enjoyable after hot, humid stickiness that made me feel like one big sweaty armpit all day. Soon that "cool breeze" turned into a raucous wind, and I started to jog, then sprint for the house with the storm at my back. I don't know how much rain we got, but it came down hard and fast, and afterwards my bare feet sunk a good 4 inches into the mud outside. Mmmm, so satisfying to let your feet soak up all that mud. I don't think that my toenails (or fingernails for that matter) will ever be clean again (ok, maybe in february).

I think everyone and everything enjoyed some moisture, (especially the mosquitos it seems)although some of our vegetables got a bit wind-blown. Most everything just perks right back up the next day.

Our heirloom tomatoes (brandywines, prudens purples, striped germans) are just starting to turn their deep reds, yellows, and golds. We also have our cherry tomatoes just exploding with ripeness, and I feel very intimate with the plants as I am picking the little cherries. Our plants are really bushy because of the hail damage we received in early June, so there are little golden nuggets hidden behind leaves and stems and twine, and often the only way to see these is to do a kindof half head-stand, and look up into the heart of the tomato plant. Another trick is to wedge my head between tomato branches hanging over the top, and I become engulfed in a green tomato jungle, looking down to the lovely jewels hanging just beyond my reach, thus forcing me to get back down on my head in the mud.

The cherry tomato plants are SO BIG, taller than I, and so I feel that it is a bit more intimate picking tomatoes than, say, baby lettuce. I don't know what it is, but the sheer size and fecundity that tomato plants achieve in a short time (maturation 60 days!) always makes me think that they are the model of living a good life. Tomato plants really pack in life while they have it. But, they are also very prone to disease, so life can end quickly and ugly. And life ends especially early for them here in Minnesota, lasting a mere two-three months that they are actually producing and we are enjoying the fruits of their labor! Anyways, I just feel lucky that we're not too far north so we can't have a real, vine-ripened tomato in the summertime. But just far enough north so that we have some peace in the winter to renew our vigor for summertime and harvesting and tomatoes and life.