BEEFSTEAK

156 – Friday, June 05, 2009

What a crimson beauty! Our first produce of the season from our very own planting efforts – it’s our first tomato born in the screened lanai – it’s a Beefsteak! weighing in at a whopping pound! In the early spring, we purchased a couple of seedlings from the Home Depot and planted them in our Topsy-Turvy hanging planters, suspending the baskets, roots up, vine down. I have watched the growth process of the fruit from the elongation of the stalk to the earliest bloom until a tiny light green orb began to form in the blossom base – at first discovery, the size of a B-B, then a pea, then a golf ball, until its ripened full maturity reached the size of a softball. For months, we have eaten some of the most tasteless and grainy imitations – the hothouse varieties are harvested so early for shipping that they are not allowed to properly mature. Our hope is that this home-grown item will offer a surprising explosion of flavor since it was allowed to fully develop and was 100% vine-ripened! We have not tasted it yet – perhaps just one more day of resting upside-down in the fresh veggies basket where all our tomatoes reside until it is their day – a day to glance at the beauty for a bit longer. My expectation is that all my anticipations are fulfilled and not dashed when I get the first bite – it would be such a let-down if that were to happen.

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