I was lucky enough to pick and eat as many of Amber’s tomatoes as I could a couple of years ago when I stayed at her house.
This year, I thought I’d try to grow my own. Unfortunately, I started late, the plants seem to be teetering on the edge of death, and there are no fruits in sight. So, I’ll have to stick with buying mine again this year.
Tonight on the radio, there was a bit about the annual tomato tasting at the Carrboro Farmers Market, which discussed the 50 local varieties available for sampling - I have, evidently, missed the tasting. But for the purposes of the event, any tomato grown within a ___ mile radius (I forget how many!) is considered local whether or not the seeds were procured locally. The types they mentioned included Heirlooms, also often known as Ugly tomatoes, because, well, they are; Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Chocolate; Black Pearl; Sunshine Gold. They sound wonderful, and they don’t compare even to the nice red hothouse version sold at the grocery store.
One important point here, in addition to saving transportation costs through buying locally, and in addition to the fact that many lower-cost products in the grocery store are subsidized in one manner or another (low pay to workers included), is the idea of maintaining seed variety.
In continuing on the Barbara Kingsolver tip, I read “A Fist in the Eye of God” this week, which comes from Small Wonder. Kingsolver explains in this essay why seed variety is important and why genetic engineering of seeds is problematic, in a few pages, which makes a big difference to me in understanding my previously kinda-weak argument against genetic engineering.
Salient points:
