Tomatoes

My feet are tapping. In my head, I can hear a vigorous horn section celebrating my every thought with a jazzy fanfare; it’s like I’m channeling Louis Prima today. If you don’t think you’ve heard of Louis Prima, he’s the hitmaker from back in the day who gained fame for his songs, “Yes! We have no Bananas” and “Just A Gigolo.” I’m in the fruit and vegetable business, not in the escort services, so it’s produce that’s got me jumpin’ and jivin’ with Louis. “Yes! We have no Tomatoes, Toot Toot!”  “But we will soon. Toot Toot!”

Musicologists will tell you that “Yes! We Have No Bananas” was a novelty song in the jazz idiom from the first quarter of the 20th Century. Louis Prima didn’t write the piece, but he had a hit off it in 1923 and, later, other artists, like Benny Goodman and Spike Jones, made popular recordings of the song too. Boiled down to its essence, the song is a lark that finds fun in a Greek produce vendor’s reluctance to say “no” to his customers. “Just try these coconuts, ” Louis sings.” These walnuts and doughnuts, there aren’t nuts like they…But, Yes! We have no bananas, we have no bananas today.”

Rainbow Cherry Tomatoes are not a special breed, but a mix of various breeds. The big, red Cherry tomatoes are actually an heirloom Italian paste tomato called “Piennolo.”

Heirloom “Persimmon” tomatoes

The tomato patch

Agricultural historians who listen to old jazz records hear something deeper at work and speculate. Maybe the Greek produce vendor couldn’t get bananas because of the Fusarium oxysporum plague that destroyed the Costa Rican banana crop in 1919. Also called “Panama Disease,” the fusarium fungus causes a wilting disease that has dramatically affected the banana trade any number of times. But what about the tomatoes? Why are we still singing, “Yes! We have no tomatoes.”

It was a cold spring and, so far, it’s been a cool summer. We planted the tomatoes right on schedule in early April and crossed out fingers that the frost wouldn’t get them. It didn’t. But it never got very warm, either, so the tomatoes didn’t grow very fast. We had weird, late rainfalls, but the rain didn’t hurt the crops. The rain didn’t help either. The late rains meant that we had to weed more often than we’d like, but the precipitation didn’t harm the tomatoes. Still, with day after day of overcast weather, the tomato plants were slow in taking off and flowering. If the tomato plant is thought of as an engine, then the nutrients in the soil are the fuel and the water is the lubricant, but the sun is the foot on the gas pedal. Some people think that you can speed a slow crop up with extra fertilizer, but if the issue is not enough warm sun then all the fertility in the world can’t help.

So, yes, we have no tomatoes, but we will. I figure we’re about three weeks late this year. The cherry tomatoes will come first because they are the smallest fruits and ripen the quickest. The dry-farmed Early Girls are “Early,” too, and will start to color up a week or so after the cherries.The rainbow array of Heirloom tomatoes come a bit after the Early Girls.The Heirlooms vary from variety to variety when it comes to the speed with which they mature. Cherokee Purple is usually the first and the Marvel Striped Tomato is usually the latest with the others, like the Brandywines and the Persimmons and the Aunt Ruby’s German Green falling somewhere in the middle. The San Marzano canning tomatoes and the Piennolo drying tomatoes come last.

Look at this big boy enjoying his Dry Farmed Early Girl tomatoes!

We will have lots of flowers this year too.

We will not be running our Mystery Box program this year, but we will be doing pop-ups around the Bay Area to sell our tomatoes, herbs, citrus, and flowers starting in August and running through the end of tomato season. We will be returning to Dogpatch in San Francisco, thanks to our hosts at Piccino restaurant. In the north of the City we will be back at our regular site in the Richmond District. Across the bay, we will be back in Berkeley on 9th street, and down the Peninsula we will be back at Ross Road in Palo Alto. The Pumpkin House is our hangout in Santa Cruz. Also, keep an eye on the newsletter for updates because we will be doing some open farm days with tomato and flower pickups. The sun is out now, the plants are in full flower, the green fruit is swelling, and it’s looking like we can get started in mid August. Yes, we will have tomatoes! Toot Toot!

Thank you, and we hope to see you soon!  Andy & Starr

Check this link if you’re interested in volunteering. https://www.mariquita.com/friends-of-ladybugs-labyrinth/