SAVAGE GARDEN: finally, some results

I was super pleased to see my first non-green tomato yesterday, on my Early Girl (so named because the breed gives you tomatoes, uh, early), after a couple of weeks of nothing happening (shortly after I begged my tomatoes to stop growing, they seemed to hit their maximum height for the size pots they’re in). Also: first stubby eggplants!

I thought as long as I was trying to grow tomatoes, I may as well try to grow ones that I couldn’t get three for a dollar at Reading Terminal Market. Thus: heirloom tomatoes! Specifically, a Brandywine on recommendation of a friend whose parents grew and sold them.

I didn’t realize that many heirloom tomatoes, at least at this point in their life cycle, are ugly as sin and not very fertile. At the moment, the net production of my enormous Brandywine vine is the solitary, hideous tomato above, which looks sort of like Heath Ledger.

Mr. Stripey, which I picked for the sole reason that it was similar to my childhood cat’s name, is actually doing the best out of all three breeds, with tons of tomatoes that are just starting to show faint stripes.

Now: a race pitting my vegetables against my landlord’s waning tolerance of my keeping them on the front porch (there’s nothing in the lease about it, darn it!). Who will win?