365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Oregon Spring Still Life
Day 356: For the first time since I moved here over two decades ago, I have had some moderate success with full-sized tomatoes. The growing season is quite short here, a factor which previously led me to select "Sweet Million," a 60-65 day cherry tomato, nibbling them straight off the vine as they ripened. For the last several years, though, I have been lucky if I got half a dozen fruits from two vines, hardly worth the bother of keeping Bambi at bay. This year, I thought I'd try a different variety and selected "Oregon Spring." The name sounded good, anyway, as if the plants might have been developed specifically to withstand the Pacific Northwest climate. I brought them home, babied them indoors until the end of May and then stuck them in the big pot outside the back door. I saw blossoms emerge and tiny fruits begin to develop and swell. Then they continued to swell without the slightest blush appearing and I wondered why. Oh dear! I'd misread the tag! They weren't cherry tomatoes at all! Oregon Spring was a full-sized variety. I figured failure was inevitable.
Well, I picked these two before they were ripe just in case Jack Frost got moody. Nights have been in the low 40s, and that's a bit too close for comfort. Give them a few more days on the kitchen counter and they'll be ready for taste-testing. Oregon Spring may well become my garden's delight.
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