Ger wrote:

> Missouri weather is actually very good to grow tomatoes.

Sure, if they're schizophrenic.  And tornado-proof.  And flood-proof.

Since the planet started warming up so drastically, Missouri weather has 
gone from erratic to vindictive, with a dash of Adding Insult to Injury. 
  Like when the ice storm of 2007 used my apple trees* to destroy my 
hazelnut bushes.

Then there was the Christmas 2015 flood on the little baby river that 
marks one edge of my property.  I didn't actually get to see it, as I 
was spending the holidays with my sister.  (Probably just as well; I 
might have had a stroke or something.)  I was delayed a few days getting 
home because there was literally no way to get there that didn't involve 
a helicopter and/or parachute.  Fortunately, all of my lawn and garden 
stuff that normally stays outside was already moved well above the 
high-water mark of the Big One of '93.  Well, I've found most of it, 
some of it fairly high up in trees.  The only thing it didn't move was 
the giant piece of wadded-up corrugated steel (possibly a barn roof) 
that the Leap-Day Tornado of 2012 left in my front yard.

> Hey there, I originate from the largest tomato exporting country in the
> world. It's not a large country by any means but man, do they grow a lot of
> those red rubber balls.

Amelia would love that!  May I ask what country?

> Yes, I was lucky to grow up with a few uncles, and cousins, that were in the
> food growing business. One uncle grew lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes in
> greenhouses. ... What the family
> ate was free to roam the field, the cows got bigger the pigs got way bigger
> and the chickens could dig in the mud however much they wanted. And they
> tasted great.

That sounds about right.  It used to be common in this part of the 
country for farmers (no matter what they were raising to sell) to keep a 
milk cow or two, some chickens, maybe a hog, and always a big kitchen 
garden.  Except (possibly) for the garden, I'm afraid those days are 
rapidly ending.  At least, some family farmers have found new ways to 
survive; for example, there are some people up the road from me a ways 
who raise llamas.  (And a lot I know about it; though I've nearly always 
lived in rural areas, my immediate family weren't farmers at all, though 
I've been acquainted with a lot of people who were.)

> A little tip, if you water tomato plants, don't get the plants wet, just the
> ground.

Here's another:  Don't teach Grandma to suck eggs.  LOL.

Seriously, in years past I had some really good gardens, and a few 
amazing ones.  Canned many, many quarts of tomatoes.  Froze many, many 
bags of green beans.  Canned gazillions of jars of assorted pickles and 
relishes.  Baked many delicious pumpkin pies out of butternut squash. 
Learned dozens of creative ways to cook or otherwise dispose of 
zucchini.  (Old joke:  "How do you recognize a Missourian with no 
friends?"  "You see him buying zucchini at the supermarket.")  Peppers, 
both sweet and hot.  Corn.  Popcorn.  Green onions (never had any luck 
with the big ones, but hey, they're cheap).  Bird house gourds.  The 
list goes on and on.  But the Big One of '93 marked the beginning of the 
end.

> Coming season plant cherry tomatoes. I know, the ones coming from a store
> taste like ping pong balls on Valium, but if you roast them in the oven with
> some olive oil, salt and pepper. I'm almost certain you'll love them.

One year, we grew some little orange, pear-shaped grape tomatoes--don't 
remember the name of the variety, but they were really delicious.  The 
real trick was to get some of them into the house and onto a plate.  :) 
  These last few years, though, it's always been too hot or too cold, 
too wet or too dry, or some hideous combination of all of the above. 
Plus tornadoes and out-of-season floods...

> Dunno what part of the Missouri universe you are in...

The rural Ozark part.

>>>> * Black pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and paprika.  And, of course, love.
>
> No fresh garlic? This saddens me deeply :)

It's a RUB.  You mix up dry stuff and put it in a jar in the cabinet to 
use as needed.  Fresh ingredients may be added as desired when the meat 
is actually cooked, including, but not limited to--oh, look!  A shiny thing!

> Com'on lady, Missouri soil is ideal to grow both onions and cayenne peppers...

You say "soil" as if you were referring to something with actual dirt 
content (as opposed to, say, a mixture of little chips of chert and 
assorted chunks of limestone and/or granite, garnished with the 
occasional boulder).  Although I have seen some marvelous strawberries 
growing out of what appeared to be several acres of river gravel.

>> --Sherry "One Giant Mass of Wrinkles" Shaw
>>
> At 22? I doubt it very much :)

Awesome math skills!

--Sherry Shaw

* BTW, were those apple blossoms in Andy's lovely photographs?  In 
February???  Sigh.

-- 
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