Marking Time

 

   Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.”
   “If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”
   “I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.
   “Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”
   “Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied; “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”
   “Ah! That accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock.”

— from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

 

Did the new decade begin a few days ago, or more than a year ago? Sticklers for numerical accuracy would say the 2020s began on January 1, 2021. But for most people, referring to the decade in the course of everyday conversation, it makes more sense to speak of January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2029, as the 2020s. It’s awkward to claim the year 2020 is not part of the 2020s, while the year 2030 is the last year of the decade. This enumeration is technically correct, but it requires a tedious explanation every time it’s dragged out and it smacks of pedantry.


In the Christian system of marking time since the birth of Christ there was no Year Zero. Unlike the rest of us, whose lives begin at 0 and progress through the days, weeks, and months up to our first birthday, when we are said to be a one-year-old, by the accounting of two monks in the Middle Ages Christ started His time on Earth at the beginning of the Year One, Anno Domini (in the Year of the Lord). He was presumably nonetheless an infant for a time, and did not spring forth fully formed as a toddler, at least according to artists and theologians over the past two thousand years Christ was an infant first.

Teaparty
Illustration by John Tenniel (1820-1914) for the 1865 edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. At the table for the Tea Party are Alice, the March Hare, the Dormouse, and the Mad Hatter.

There has been confusion ever since in our decimal system of counting the years as units of ten, one hundred, and one thousand years tick over. Recall the most recent change of century and the confusion over whether the 21st century began on January 1, 2000, or January 1, 2001. Without a Year Zero to fall back on two thousand years ago, the correct year to anoint as the beginning of the New Millennium was 2001. Looking back from the Year 2000 would, despite it’s name, take one back only one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine years. It’s as if Time were a bank teller whose true accounting for a check’s amount came from reading the numbers spelled out in alphabetical characters, and not the Arabic numerals in the box to the right. And that supposes there are still a significant number of people around in this New Millennium who use and understand written checks.

So yes, there are discrepancies. Not that they matter much to most people: it’s not as if there is real money at stake from missing appointments and having communication failures. Those dates and times have a finer point to them than the decades that roll by, as Alice knew when she disputed with the Mad Hatter the necessity of broad markings of time on a watch. A watch is for marking seconds, minutes, and hours, and a calendar is for marking days, weeks, and months. Nature, however, continues to mark the time for all on the broadest possible scale and, for those who pay attention, on the smallest scale imaginable.

David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash perform “Wasted on the Way”, a song written by Mr. Nash.

Stroll through Nature and you will note that Time is subjective, and different creatures and plants exist on different scales. A hummingbird lives at a pace unimaginably fast to us, but of course the hummingbird is adjusted to its own timescale. To a hummingbird, we must appear to be moving in slow motion. The opposite may be the case for a giant redwood tree, if it can be said to have perceptions. To the redwood, we are perhaps like hummingbirds. We lose sight of Nature’s timekeeping, and instead give undue importance to our own arbitrary social constructs for timekeeping. The middle ground from seconds to years suits us well on the timescale of our lifespans, which are not as short as that of hummingbirds nor as long as that of giant redwood trees. Take the time to stroll through Nature, and leave the watch behind.
— Izzy

 

Goldilocks Tomatoes

 

Americans have become spoiled by the year round availability of produce at the supermarket. The tomatoes available in the store most of the year are hardly worthwhile, but there they are nonetheless, waiting for shoppers who have no other option. Summer is the time for homegrown tomatoes, which definitely are worthwhile, however too many Americans appear to carry over the habits they’ve learned from grocery shopping and believe they should be able to harvest tomatoes from their small patch of a few plants nearly every day all summer long. It’s as if they thought someone might be hiding throughout the day near the tomato patch and coming out under cover of darkness to restock their plants with newly ripened fruit, and just enough to satisfy the consumer’s need for the day.

 

That would be a pleasant scenario, but unfortunately it’s a pipe dream. There are only two factors broadly setting the pace for when tomatoes ripen and in what quantity, and they are the genetics of a determinate versus indeterminate tomato plant, and the weather, particularly temperature. A determinate tomato plant grows to a point of maturity, sets fruit, generally earlier in the summer than other tomato plants, and then goes dormant. An indeterminate tomato plant continues growing, vine-like, throughout the summer until frost, and sets fruit sporadically from mid-summer on, although the fruits borne late in the season as cool weather approaches may not ripen on the vine.

Rajčata&skleník
Growing tomatoes in a greenhouse or cold frame is a way to extend the season by exerting more control over growing conditions than can be had by subjecting the plants to nature. Photo by Fredy.00.

Temperature as a determining factor for tomato plants setting fruits and ripening them is important across the board, no matter what type of plant, whether determinate or indeterminate, or whether the grower advertises a particular plant as an early, late, or mid season variety. Nighttime temperatures below 55 degrees are no good, as are daytime temperatures above 85 degrees. Everything else is meaningless if the temperature does not reside within that sweet spot, that Goldilocks zone. Growers of hothouse tomatoes know this better than anybody. Yet year after year home growers select their tomato plants at the garden center each spring with a plan of spreading out the harvest throughout the summer based on type of plant and promises made by the seller of when to expect the harvest to begin.

There will be some variation in growth early in the season when planting a patch of a few tomato plants, and staggering planting dates may be of limited utility early on as well. As summer progresses, though, and hot weather takes over day after day, all the plants will end up near the same stage of growth at the same time, and the poor gardener, whose best laid plans called for perhaps only a few ripe tomatoes each day from June through September, instead finds himself or herself with an avalanche of ripening tomatoes in July and August, or hardly any at all. These are the risks of subjecting our desires to nature’s control, rather than going to the supermarket to buy a lackluster but sturdily dependable tomato.

What to do? If enough space is available, put in more than a half dozen plants, even if that means a potential glut of tomatoes in a bumper year. More plants is good insurance against a bad year and brings the dream of an evenly spaced harvest closer to reality. Put those plants in slightly different locations, varying the microclimate for each plant, rather than subjecting all of them to the exact same conditions, and potentially the exact same problems. Spread them out if there’s space available. Tomato plants should get at least six hours of sunlight each day, but the kind of sunlight matters a great deal. All tomato plants like to get early morning sun to dry the dew off their leaves. In the South, they appreciate shade from the hottest afternoon sun.

John Denver performed the Guy Clark song “Homegrown Tomatoes” for his 1988 album, Higher Ground, and the song then appeared on his 1991 compilation album, Take Me Home, Country Roads.

If not much space is available, put in as many plants as possible without crowding them, which leads to poor air circulation and consequent fungus and blight problems. Use deep containers with adequate drainage, and mount them on wheels to make it easier to take advantage of varying light as summer progresses. Above all, stop looking at the tomato patch as a supermarket produce section where the fruit appears only as required. Outside under the hot sun, through irregular rain showers and storms, and at the mercy of pests and competing weeds, the tomato plants are taking their own sweet time and are subject less to the gardener and more to nature. If it seems like having only two or three plants makes for a Goldilocks garden, where everything has to be just right to get a spread out harvest, or even any ripe tomatoes at all, then diversify and put in more plants in more spaces. What ripe fruits you get will always be better than supermarket tomatoes and well worth the effort, and you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding takers for the surplus in good years.
— Izzy

 

To Every Thing There Is a Season

 

People enjoy their home grown tomatoes so much more than store bought that they try to extend the growing season and stretch out the harvest. The primary limiting factor is the weather, and secondarily the genetics of tomato varieties. Tomato plants prefer temperatures between 55 and 95 degrees, and in most of the continental United States that means they do their best between June and September. Summer is their season. Genetically, full-sized tomato plants, as opposed to dwarf or cherry tomato varieties, fall into two groups – determinate or indeterminate. Determinate plants grow to a certain point, set fruit, and then are done for the season. Indeterminate plants continue growing and setting fruit throughout the season.

 

There are conditions and variables to all these factors, and they play an important part in seeing that, hard as a gardener may try, most of their tomatoes will ripen over a shorter period than plant information tags would have them believe. Plant tags give maturation dates for the tomato varieties they describe. They are only rough guides, not to be taken at face value! Too many gardeners believe the tags and think that by planting tomato varieties with as wide a spread of maturation dates as possible they will be ensured a lengthy harvest season. Not necessarily! The weather plays the biggest part in dictating when you will get ripe tomatoes and over how long a period. The next most important factor is whether the plant is determinate or indeterminate, since determinate varieties will almost always be the first to fruit and the first to stop bearing. The maturation date on the plant tag is the least reliable factor and is nearly useless.

 

Lufa Farms Strawberry Tomatoes
Strawberry tomatoes at Lufa Farms, the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouses, in the Montreal, Canada, neighborhood of Ahuntsic-Cartierville; photo by Benoit Rochon.

Some gardeners think that by staggering the planting dates of their tomato plants they will stagger the harvest dates as well. Not necessarily! Again, the weather is the most important factor in how quickly or slowly your tomato plants grow. Plants started later in the spring will often catch up to ones planted earlier. Plants started too early in the spring will often sit there and do nothing until the weather warms up. You can’t fool Mother Nature!

The best way to lengthen the growing season, and therefore the harvest, is to make use of either a cold frame or a greenhouse, or both. Of the two, a greenhouse is the better option because it is ultimately more useful. A cold frame is useful mainly for starting plants, though it can also be used for low-growing vegetables and fruits like lettuce and strawberries. A greenhouse should be tall enough for fully grown tomato plants, even when they are in raised beds. A greenhouse is not a hothouse. A hothouse is, of course, heated. That would be stepping up another level in expense and trouble, which for a home gardener with a ten by twelve foot greenhouse would make every tomato unnecessarily expensive. No, a simple and inexpensive home greenhouse is primarily useful for extending the growing season from summer into spring at the front end, and autumn at the back end.

Roger Cook of This Old House helped this Mississippi homeowner build an inexpensive backyard greenhouse. At the end, Mr. Cook tells the homeowner he should be able to grow vegetables year round in the greenhouse. Since the greenhouse will be unheated, year round use would be possible in Mississippi, most of which is in winter hardiness zone 8a. Use in your location may be limited to three seasons.

There are home greenhouse kits on the market, and a gardener could spend over 1,000 dollars for a nicely appointed one. The very cheap ones are not worth even their low price, and will cause you more trouble than they’re worth. The greenhouse depicted in the This Old House video here is a solid, utilitarian model that should cost less than 500 dollars. It won’t win any awards for looks, but that would probably present an obstacle only for homeowners association members. One suggestion to improve upon the construction method in the video would involve using weather stripping or batting between the plastic and the staples to distribute the force of the plastic against the staples, reducing the chances of the plastic tearing loose in the wind. 1/2 inch staples would hold everything well, and to reduce frustration a quality staple gun is a must. As with a tarpaulin or any other lightweight material used outdoors, the plastic needs to be stretched tight to lessen its movement in the wind. After all that work and expense, you can look forward to a longer tomato harvest season, and to tomatoes that don’t cost a small fortune. You may even save a few dollars over the long haul, though it might be a stretch to say you could pay off your mortgage early, the way Radiator Charlie of West Virginia did with his ‘Mortgage Lifter’ tomatoes back in the 1940s.
― Izzy