My gardening ignorance knows no bounds, so for the longest time I wondered how exactly are tomatoes appear on the vine? I know this is a trite question to preoccupy my mind with, what with all the thinking I could be doing about world peace and the nature of happiness and all, but occupy me it did.
Normally I turn to Google to solve my quandaries, but for some reason, in this case the effort proved worthless. Experienced gardeners already knew the answer, and all I could find was chipperly ignorant answers from other first time gardeners. (Speaking of, I drove by a church readerboard the other day that proclaimed “Google does NOT have all the answers.” I guess that proves them right. Made me laugh.)
For weeks while I waited for something, anything to happen with the tomatoes who were flowering leisurely, I circled the plants like a hungry shark waiting for some sign of a bulge. Would it come from behind the flower like a cucumber? Would it form inside the flower itself? I didn’t want to miss the moment that would answer this cruicial question so every day I checked for the telltale little green ball that would tell me my efforts would be rewarded.
And when finally, my first plant, the Black Prince, decided to reward my patience, and I had my answer. So I thought I’d share it with anyone else who may be wondering how exactly the magic happens and where to look for it next time. And then the photo turned out blurry. And then I cried. But I’ll post it anyway, because a crappy photo still solves the mystery once and for all. The flower wilts, people, wilts! And from BEHIND the wilted flower the tomato starts peeking out. First as a teeny little pea, and rather quickly grows to a large orange that proceeds to turn lighter and lighter until allegedly, it begins to ripen. But I’ll try and take a photo of that as it happens. Does it start on top? Side?…
