**************************************
"HONEY, I FOUND ANOTHER ONE!"
**************************************
Life is too short for a person never to taste a good home-grown vine-ripened tomato! There is nothing like them---anyone will tell you!
Just admit it: how many times have you looked inside your $7.95 hamburger and just tossed aside the greenish tomato slice?
You have no doubt read my two tomato posts (still on Mil's Place) from last year. The story is that I ordered five (splendid) "Earth Boxes" circa 2004, filled them with soil, and planted two tomato vines per box. Watered daily in the little reservoir at the bottom, these vines will grow to seven feet tall and provide all the tomatoes you can eat---plus plenty of them for "good will" purposes.
The amazing thing is that we are still using the same soil as the first year. We just order the kits annually; these contain a little bag of dolomite and a bag of special tomato fertilizer.
Alas, however, as you know. life has its good news and bad news. Roses have their thorns. Life on this planet is loaded with its contrasts, otherwise how would we know when things were good? Our tomato plants get "those old MANDUCA QUINQUEMACULATAS!" (Or is it: "MANDUCAS QUINQUEMACULATA?") Yes, I know---a big mouthful---as big as a bite out of a juicy red garden tomato!
Actually that long scientific term above is the final product of the "ICKY" tomato worm at its maturity...a butterfly-looking moth!
The term, "icky" was coined by my lovely and sharp-eyed wife who can see these worms (and they are HARD to see) like no one else! "Honey, there's another one!" Then she will point down into the maze of greenery in the middle of the tomato vine (reluctantly, as if something is about to reach out and nip off her index finger) and say---"there, there, THERE HE IS!!" Then she will quickly withdraw her finger and step back as if she has spotted a jumping tomato worm, which has zeroed in on her! What can I say? Women are just not fond of them!
That is my signal to grab him--- hard to do---he clings tenaciously to the vine---and I feel him wiggling inside my Kleenex. Okay, yes, I require a Kleenex...I don't like 'em either!
Usually we have only one or two worms but this year we have had four or five, all clever at hiding.
The wife, excited and unnerved by these "worm safaris," gets philosophical: “If they weren’t so ugly there would be a sort of fearsome beauty about them.” "Why did God create tomato worms?" "The “ICK FACTOR” on a scale of one to ten---IS TWELVE!" "Do they have a right to life?"
Not if they fool around with my tomatoes!!
********30********
BY MIL
8/27/12
Sent from my iPad
"HONEY, I FOUND ANOTHER ONE!"
**************************************
Life is too short for a person never to taste a good home-grown vine-ripened tomato! There is nothing like them---anyone will tell you!
Just admit it: how many times have you looked inside your $7.95 hamburger and just tossed aside the greenish tomato slice?
You have no doubt read my two tomato posts (still on Mil's Place) from last year. The story is that I ordered five (splendid) "Earth Boxes" circa 2004, filled them with soil, and planted two tomato vines per box. Watered daily in the little reservoir at the bottom, these vines will grow to seven feet tall and provide all the tomatoes you can eat---plus plenty of them for "good will" purposes.
The amazing thing is that we are still using the same soil as the first year. We just order the kits annually; these contain a little bag of dolomite and a bag of special tomato fertilizer.
Alas, however, as you know. life has its good news and bad news. Roses have their thorns. Life on this planet is loaded with its contrasts, otherwise how would we know when things were good? Our tomato plants get "those old MANDUCA QUINQUEMACULATAS!" (Or is it: "MANDUCAS QUINQUEMACULATA?") Yes, I know---a big mouthful---as big as a bite out of a juicy red garden tomato!
Actually that long scientific term above is the final product of the "ICKY" tomato worm at its maturity...a butterfly-looking moth!
The term, "icky" was coined by my lovely and sharp-eyed wife who can see these worms (and they are HARD to see) like no one else! "Honey, there's another one!" Then she will point down into the maze of greenery in the middle of the tomato vine (reluctantly, as if something is about to reach out and nip off her index finger) and say---"there, there, THERE HE IS!!" Then she will quickly withdraw her finger and step back as if she has spotted a jumping tomato worm, which has zeroed in on her! What can I say? Women are just not fond of them!
That is my signal to grab him--- hard to do---he clings tenaciously to the vine---and I feel him wiggling inside my Kleenex. Okay, yes, I require a Kleenex...I don't like 'em either!
Usually we have only one or two worms but this year we have had four or five, all clever at hiding.
The wife, excited and unnerved by these "worm safaris," gets philosophical: “If they weren’t so ugly there would be a sort of fearsome beauty about them.” "Why did God create tomato worms?" "The “ICK FACTOR” on a scale of one to ten---IS TWELVE!" "Do they have a right to life?"
Not if they fool around with my tomatoes!!
********30********
BY MIL
8/27/12
Sent from my iPad
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