My gardening guru Jim Sherman got in touch yesterday. "It's been a great year for tomatoes," he observed, "just enough rain and a nice long cool season." Once it gets so hot that the overnight temperatures don't go below 85°F, big tomatoes stop setting new fruit. But cherry tomatoes like Sweet Millions will keep going when the overnight low temperature is as high as 90°F or even 95°F, Jim said. The Sweet Millions in my backyard are still going strong. Even though the cardinals are feasting on them, I still have so many I am turning the overflow into salsa.
Jim tends an experimental raised bed in the garden behind the community center at Finnigan Park. The park is one of many such projects overseen by Harris County Precinct One Commissioner El Franco Lee, who went to Phillis Wheatley High School, right across Sonora Street. The garden is part of the park's weekday activities program for neighborhood senior citizens. The seniors had several beds of big tomatoes, bell peppers and squash that were looking great. Another bed is tended by kids in the YET Center at Finnigan. Orchardist and extreme gardener George McAfee has several more raised beds planted in tomatoes—George is in charge of the day-to-day running of the garden.
Jim Sherman invited me to stop by and harvest some of the overflow tomatoes before a hovering flock of mockingbirds finished wiping them out. So I drove over for a couple of bags of Sun Gold and Sweet Million cherry tomatoes and a big shock of lemon basil and put them out on the counter at the Houstonia office. Many thanks to the Finnigan Park gang for the great lunch!
If you have a neighbor who grows tomatoes, now is the time of year when you should be extra nice to them.
