Tomato Fishing Essays - Fruit, Solanum, Tomato, Eggplant

Tomato Fishing This spring, we bought six itty-bitty tomato plants. Ko-Koi broke one (she has a fetish for green vegetables), and we managed to save both parts, giving us seven. We planted the tomatoes in the garden, with rows of sunflowers, beans and beets, four eggplants, five bell peppers, several herbs and a peach tree named Packwood (named after creeping under my skirt once too often). Everything was going along nicely. Then we went on vacation.... We came back to find a sea of green. Tomatoes covered everything. We had to transplant two of the eggplants, and we lost the one with the red and white stripes. Most of the herbs had disappeared. The peppers and Packwood were ok, but we hadn't planted any tomatoes in that box. But the tomatoes in the next box over were trying to invade it. Tomatoes overflowed everywhere. After a few weeks of picking, I noticed a few things. The first was how much my back and legs hurt from standing on my head so much. The second was how much picking tomatoes was like fishing. The first thing you do is find a spot to fish/pick from. For fishing, that means either wading out in boots or going out in a boat. For picking, it means wherever you can find room for your feet. Next, you cast off with your rod or your hand. Then you grope around until you feel something. Then you bring it up to the surface and decide if it's big enough/ripe enough to eat. If it's not, you throw it back. If it is, then you pick it/reel it in. And of course, you can always brag about the ones that got away.