Disorder rules our garden. Weeds intrude, deer take a passing munch, and things just get out-of-hand. Take our tomatoes, for instance. Before going on an extended vacation, my wife tied the biggest shoots of our still modest plants to a few vertical sticks. It looked good. And then we blithely left them for three weeks, unattended. Those of you who are growing tomatoes this year know what happened next. Our tomatoes grew like mad things. They shot up. They shot out. They sprawled around. When we got back from vacation, we found our tomatoes were running riot. And then one of the sticks broke….
That vegetable collapse finally convinced me to build more substantial tomato supports. I took a bunch of somewhat shabby 2x4s and cut them lengthwise into 2x2s. I bundled these in threes, drilled a hole through each one near the top, threaded heavy cord through that, wrapped the cord around them once or twice and tied it loosely enough that the three legs could be spread into a useful tripod. In the garden, I screwed on a few cross bars to keep the legs in position. I tore up an old white shirt into strips, tied these loosely around the stems needing support and with the aid of string, gently hoisted up the sprawling limbs of our tomato plants. The resulting tomato towers are not things of beauty or great symmetry, but they have a pleasing rustic look and will hold their own against the most vigorous of tomatoes for years to come.
If all this construction has worn you out, here is a very easy and delicious supper.
An easy tomato sauce for pasta: (Serves 2)
Ingredients:
olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
8 medium tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped (no need to remove the skins)
handful of basil leaves
spaghetti (or some other pasta)
Parmesan cheese (or Romano), grated or shaved salt and pepper to taste
Procedure:
Saute the garlic in the olive oil, but don’t brown it. Toss in the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, smushing the tomato chunks as they cook. Cook this down until you get a pleasingly thick consistency. Tear up the basil leaves and add them in the last ten minutes or so of cooking. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over the cooked pasta with lots of Parmesan or Romano cheese.
-SD
