Trina Machacek: Growing a salad

There is nothing like picking a big ole red ripe tomato right off the vine and slurping it up like a man dying of hunger on a deserted island.

That day is coming around again as spring planting is starting to make dirt deprived winter fingers itch with anticipation. I am the one friend that will take all the zucchini my gardening friends have.

I take the tomatoes, beans, peas any and all extra bounty that is grown by a gardener with too much harvest. Oh, there is always extra because it is well-known that as a gardener it’s an unwritten fact that we will always plant the entire packet of seeds.

Even though our larders truly only need what a half a pack of seeds will produce. The queen of any garden is the tomato. Big, medium or little bites of the acid of summer. That, that is what has always been, to me and the gardeners I have known, THE ultimate star of the garden show.

Just peruse the seed rack as soon as it is put out on display and the varieties of the red goddesses cause eye popping happiness. Closely followed by the types and length of green beans and corn.

The thing about corn, at least in this neck of the woods, is how quickly can you get the corn to produce ears. Corn packages are listed by the “days to harvest.” Which for corn seems to be over 80 in most garden states.

But. Yes, a corny “but.” Here you look for the packs of seeds marked with promises of ears of corn on the stock within 40 days! Ha! I can tell you from experience that yes, eared corn is possible in 40 days and nights.

But when you pull back the leaves and silk, the corn looks like a near toothless mouth of some backwoods family that lives up the holler. You hear banjos being played in the eerie misty hills. Yes, there’s a visual you will not forget with your 40-day corn!

Therefore, I buy corn at the store to be able to sleep without nightmares. The rest of a garden is doable here in these 6,500 feet above sea level high mountain desert dirt pockets. Might have to go out and cover your babies every night until about mid-June, but you can certainly grow the vegies for a BLT.

Again, though. It is the tomato that is most sought. The big beef eater. Ones that promise to make a thick juicy slice covering one whole hamburger. Even hang over the sides. Or the little cherry red ones that you pick and pop in your mouth one after another after another.

Recently I was talking to an avid gardener that said something that made me laugh out loud. We were talking of the upcoming gardening season. Why not, it hadn’t snowed in like 27 minutes! That of course is a fib. It was more like an hour and 27 minutes.

My friend says he was just getting ready to plant his $5,000 tomatoes. What?! Surprised I asked if there was some contest he was entering. No, he was just a realist. This guy does both types of tomato growing.

Plants varieties from seeds and buys three or four plants of varying sizes. Hedging all his bets that something will eventually produce a vine ripened masterpiece. So, I asked, how does that get you a $5,000 tomato. Who knows, maybe I might want to get in on this windfall. I mean I can certainly grow a tomato!

Here’s the whole story… This is as true of a windowsill gardener or a patio container gardener, up to a backyard gardener that uses a 5 hp tiller each spring and the grand greenhouse gardener.

My green thumbed gardener friend tells me the time spent on a tomato plant from planting to harvesting, in the real world, would cost about $5,000 per tomato. If you are a type A personality that looks at the world through dollars, he is right.

Time alone, even at farm hand wages could drive the cost of those red nuggets to easily be worth their weight in gold. Not to mention the water, fertilizer, bug patrol keeping the cats out of the garden, covering to protect from an errant snowstorm in July!

It all could easily make a tomato worth every penny of $5,000. I’m here to tell you though. Once you put your hands down in the earth, grab a handful and smell that rich soil and all the promises it holds. All bets are off on how much your beets, broccoli, radishes and carrots actually cost.

Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. Email itybytrina@yahoo.com.