Oy, Tomatoes

Posted on Tuesday 8 May 2007 at 10:30

I am such a schmuck.

In my part of the world, it's a few weeks too late to be starting tomato plants. Yet I went out to the garden shed tonight, and its aura of peace, calm and copious amounts of potting soil wrangled me into an alternate dimension. One where tomatoes will germinate, grow and produce on time if planted on May 8th.

Two flats later, I moved on to my Experimental Vegetable #1 for the year, a Chinese cabbage (michihli). This is not a TYDOS experiment - I am going to try not to guinea pig my customers this year, given how the Great Late Watermelon Experiment turned out last year. This is something I'm inflicting on my closest loved ones, and maybe the neighbours if the loved ones don't co-operate.

Also in my experimental stack, I have kohlrabi - okay, well, I hear they're good. They look like a mutant alien cabbage with antennae to me, and I have no idea what goes in a kohlrabi recipe. Time to go cry on Google.com's shoulder till it produces a meal plan I might be able to slip past my family.

Third, I have Bok Choi. I have high hopes for the Chinese version of Swiss chard - at least that's what it looks like to my untrained eye. This is because it says on the package that in some instances you can substitute it for celery. I really hope that's true, because I'd like a northern version of celery. One of my goals is to find locally-realistic substitutes for some of the grocery store staples I (and my customers) don't want to buy.

Here's hoping that A) Bok Choi doesn't taste like, well, much of anything, kind of like celery, and B) its stems are sturdier than Swiss chard and will stand up a bit better under cooking. We like celery in things. We don't really like to actually eat celery for itself. We do not love it for who it is, we only use it for convenience. And we are not ashamed in the slightest.

Untitled Comment

Posted by morningsunshine on Wednesday 9 May 2007 at 08:11 - Link

your posts always make me chuckle! thanks for the laugh adn the update on the garden!