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14 September 2005
saving tomato seeds
Last night I was gripped by a fear (prompted, I think, by acute homesickness brought on by watching scenes of Hyde Park and the University of Chicago campus during a preview screening of Proof at LACMA) that I would be back in Chicago and that Evan's tomatoes would become nothing more than a memory.
What to do with fear? Take action! I will collect seeds from Evan's tomatoes when we have the saucefest this weekend, and lovingly preserve them in the hope of growing them myself, here or elsewhere.
How to do it? I've found some advice here and here. (n.b.: Terrence dislikes this here and here way of displaying links to different pages, but it works for me.)
Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to turn this into a major production. My experience with tomato seeds is that they're quite hardy: We used to have compost bins in our Chicago garden. At the end of the summer, the tomato vines (and any fruit that managed to hang on without ripening) would be cut and mashed and tossed in the bin, along with all the other clippings and appropriate kitchen waste. The bins would be filled to the brim. Come spring, the material in the bin would be reduced by two-thirds, all rich, good-smelling compost. We'd spread it around and then...voila! Little tomato plants would inevitably spring up here and there. I suppose some would cite this as a sign of incomplete or improper composting, but I liked seeing the little tomato plant sprouts in odd places. And I didn't see the harm of it. To me, tomato seeds are like the sparrows of the vegetable world: They survive outside during a Chicago winter and still flourish the next spring.
And...I braved the 405 South and the 110 South and made my way to Harbor City and La Espanola. The Spanish sherry vinegar is on our kitchen counter as I type, so gazpacho will be in the works shortly.