You Grow Girl™

This morning I discovered one of my tomato plants had been knocked over by the wind (container and all). We had a very windy day yesterday. The plant is okay but sadly I lost SEVERAL underdeveloped black plum tomatoes. This is the same plant that had blossom end rot. I'm starting to think I'm NEVER going to get one ripe tomato off this thing. The sad thing is that this is the plant I am most excited about. Now I've got a bowl of tiny, green tomatoes that I'm trying to ripen off the vine. We'll see what happens.

Green Zebra Tomato

A first Tiger Tom tomato is nearly ripe. I have recently lost several tomatoes to what I believe is a squirrel (I've never witnessed the perpetrator in the act) and have been removing tomatoes prematurely in an effort to beat the thief to ripe fruit. The little stealer has been so bold as to leave the remnents and then come back and eat it at her/his leisure. As a result I have been toying with the idea of removing the reddening Tiger Tom before the squirrel has a chance to get to it. I'm starting to think it is only interested in the Purple Princes though because it has never taken any of the other varieties -- all of which have been within easy reach.

J keeps telling me to make a cayenne pepper spray and see if that keeps the squirrel away but I've been too lazy. I suppose I have nothing to complain about when I can't be bothered to do anything to prevent the theft. But I have heard that cayenne sprays can hurt squirrel eyes. I want to prevent it from eating my precious tomatoes, not blind it.

...And my tomatoes are precious. Each one is like a little jewel and I'd swear about as costly. My harvest is looking grim. Okay I'm exaggerating a bit here. I'm enjoying tomatoes on a regular basis. I'm just not getting the bushells I would expect from so many plants. I imagined that at this time of year I'd be up to my neck in hot water and jars producing bottles of multi-coloured sauce from my cornucopia of tomato fruit. I imagined myself giving them away, as I did last year because I couldn't eat them and Davin couldn't keep up. I imagined drying some in the oven and having to hold myself back from eating tomato sandwiches for every meal. Those dreams just aren't going to happen.

It's my fault for starting late again so I have no one to blame but me. I'm noticing I'm becoming extremely greedy about the tomatoes. I savour each one and will be sad when there are no more left. I thought about giving some as a gift the other day and within the same breath I thought "Forget it! They didn't lug soil and buckets of water and check plants every day and.... "

All of my usual tendencies towards sharing are diminishing. I don't even want to give away basil and I've got tons of that. I've been harvesting it on a regular basis throughout the summer, making bags of pesto and dried mixes. But being the end of the season I'm starting to see the end of the basil as well and am feeling the urge to hoard it all for my fall, winter and spring stock. I'm thinking that this tendency is at least partially coming out of my ever increasing disdain for the winter. Perhaps I'm falling into this hourding business as a way to prepare myself for it.

Sharing Food

This week J turned me on to FoodShare a non-profit in Toronto that operates several grassroots organizations that focus on all aspects of food from field to table. From their website:

"We believe that food is vital to the health of individuals and communities, and that access to good, healthy food is a basic human right. FoodShare promotes policies - such as adequate social assistance rates, sustainable agriculture, universal funding of community-based programs and nutrition education - that will make food a priority at all levels of society."

I am embarrassed to say I had never heard about them until this week when J sent me a link to their site. They stand for everything I believe in regarding food and growing food.

Food has become really important to me in the last few years. I developed health problems that had been brewing for some time but had been passed over by doctors. As I became commited to figuring out what was wrong with me and how I could deal with this, I began to focus more and more on food and eating. Since then I've read tons about food and how everything you put into your body effects you in different ways, etc., etc. These are all simple, common sense concepts that are so easy to overlook and take for granted -- and I did take them for granted for years. Through the last few years, in making careful, considered choices regarding what I put into my body and through the experience of growing my own food I have begun to make more solid connections between food, agriculture, health etc. I have realised that taking responsibility for my food (how I acquire it, where it comes from, what is in it, how it is grown, what it is) is vitally important and that everyone should have access to this information and the ability to carry through with it whether that means somewhere to grow food, or access to healthy food that is affordable.

I had always assumed that the socio-economic hierarchy of food was more black and white then grey. I mean I understand that alot of people can't meet basic needs, and that IS a health issue. But I never really truly understood that if you were eating in a way that is generally considered to be enough as far as quantity, that you might still be malnourished. That you still might not be meeting your basic needs despite the fact that your stomach is full. This became really apparent to me when I first started shopping in health food stores on a regular basis. Health food is expensive. It costs money to eat in a way that truly sustains and nourishes and promotes homeostatis -- especially if you live in the city. It became more apparent when I went to the opening of the Whole Foods store in Toronto. I thought it was going to be a cornucopia of health products and maybe even at slightly reduced prices (as was advertised), but in fact it was a lot of delicacies that were extremely expensive but not healthy and then most of the usual healthfood products I always see in other smaller stores. There were so many obviously upperclass people shopping there and I thought "This has nothing to do with health. This has to do with being able to afford to eat expensive food -- eating on a tier above others -- eating according to class divisions. The emphasis seems to be on eating fancy food not on eating healthy food."

These aren't concepts I didn't know or hadn't thought about in the past. But there is a big difference between knowing something and really understanding the importance of something and I suppose at some point I crossed that threshold.